Lisbon’s Tyler Clark turned in the top time at the University of Maine at Augusta course this weekend. Clark won the MVC boys title Saturday in a time of 16:39.

To make Clark’s time more impressive was that he really had no one pushing him after he distanced himself from runner-up Danny Soltan of Winthrop at the midway point.

“He ran a 16:39,” said Lisbon coach Hank Fuller. “(The course) was a little wet, and to be by himself, it was a good time. He’s really focused and he’s ready for the regionals, the state championships and, hopefully the New Englands. He loves the challenge and the hills.”

At Friday’s KVAC meet, Mt. Blue’s Eric Marceau had a winning time of 17:04 with Edward Little’s Tom Esponette breathing down his neck for the final 200 meters.

Kazar the key for Eddies

When Edward Little won the boys KVAC Class A title Friday, the Red Eddies got a big lift from junior Nick Kazar, who finished 12th overall and third on the team behind Esponette and sophomore Tyler Gammon.

The two-time Eastern Regional champion had suffered through a difficult season. For most of the season he was well out of the top 10 in smaller meets.

At EL’s first meet of the season, he turned in a disappointing 33rd place finish and was 2-minutes and 25 seconds behind Esponette. He was 58 seconds behind his teammate at the KVAC meet.

“If we’re going to do well,” EL coach Dan Campbell said after Friday’s race, “the key for us is Nick Kazar. He’s had a couple great weeks of practice and he’s starting to gain confidence in himself. He pulls us and we pull him. As Nick goes, so does our team.”

KVAC confusion

The scoring for the KVAC boys Class A race wasn’t easy. Somehow the bib numbers for Lewiston weren’t matching at the end of the race.

When the results were posted on the side of the scorer’s tent after the race, the sixth-place finisher was “Aaron Champagne, Lewiston”.

The runner was actually Matt Driscoll of Lewiston. Champagne competes for Skowhegan and turned out not to be a factor in the race. On top of that, a few of the Lewiston runners were scrambled, with Robbie Leeman listed as the eighth-place finisher (instead of Jeff Lucier) and Mohamed Ibraham in 10th which was where Leeman finished. Fourth runner Tom Tripp wasn’t listed (he was mis-identified as teammate Joey Travaglini) and George Foster’s 26th place finish wasn’t even on the board. Anwar Mohamed showed up as the No. 66 runner even though he didn’t compete.

On top of that, Lucier was listed in the junior varsity results as the 103rd of 104 finishers.

Confused yet? Well, the judges were too.

The fact the race is run with both A and B classes together, doesn’t make it any easier for the official scorers of the meet.

Mustangs suffer setback

The Monmouth girls’ team was dealt a blow recently when senior Lindsay Scirica came down with an illness. At last year’s MVC meet, Scirica finished eighth overall. Saturday she decided to compete knowing she hadn’t run in over two weeks and it would be a struggle just to finish.

She finished in 32nd overall and was the Mustangs’ No. 9 runner.

“Lindsay has finished anywhere from first to fifth for us her whole career,” said Monmouth coach Rick Amero Saturday.

“Unfortunately, this might have been her last race.”

WMC’s depth shows in Falmouth

The deepest field of any race this weekend belonged to the boys’ race in the Western Maine Conference Championships on Friday at Falmouth. Local runners Nick Williams of Poland and Fryeburg’s Tim Even were two of the six turning in sub-17 minute results. Falmouth’s Ethan Shaw won the race in a time of 16:21 to beat Williams by 10 seconds. Even was fourth.

Cape Elizabeth showed why they’ve been rated No. 1 all season in the coaches’ poll. They had six runners turn in times of 18:00 or less.

Not a bad pack, huh?

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