LEWISTON – Not that you can clock-watch in cross country, at least not live from a different course, but Lewiston High School coach Ray Putnam sure wishes he could have last weekend.

While Lewiston was wrapping up its third straight Easter Regional title in Belfast last weekend, Cheverus – finally back at full strength – was dueling with Scarborough for the Western Maine crown.

Cheverus won.

“These two teams scare the heck out of me,” Putnam said. “They’re good. They’re very good.”

But times from the Western Regional at Twin Brook in Cumberland don’t always translate evenly to the same-length course at Troy Howard Middle School. The courses are completely different.

“You have to do a lot of cross-comparisons to try to figure everything out,” Putnam said. “We spent over two hours looking at kids who ran the same course we did the week before, and their times, and did all of these cross-comparisons. Even with all that work, they still have to go out and run.”

And run they will this weekend. Lewiston will look to go back-to-back in the Class A boys’ state championship cross country meet in Belfast on Saturday, part of a whole day of multi-class racing at Troy Howard Middle School.

“Everything, all year, as been focused on this meet,” Putnam said. “This is the only meet we run for all year. This is the only one that matters.”

The Blue Devils have run well in Belfast this year, placing third overall at the multi-class Festival of Champions nearly a month ago.

Scarborough beat the Devils in that race to take first overall.

“If the course is similar to last week, I’m hoping to be 15 to 20 seconds per athlete better,” Putnam said. “If we get 20 seconds per kid, I think that’ll be enough, but you just don’t know. They could come in and run 20 seconds faster, too. You have to go in, put your best foot forward, see what you can do and hope the cards fall right. You never know, a kid could be running and he could lose his shoe.”

Putnam would know a bit about adversity on the way to a title.

“Everyone last year was like, ‘Why are you worried, why are you uncomfortable?,'” Putnam said. “We didn’t know we’d won until they handed us the trophy. (Matt) Driscoll had lost his shoe during the race.”

Robbie Leeman, Driscoll and Hussain Ibrahim will be the Devils’ top three runners going into the race – they finished 5-6-7 at Eastern regionals – but the placement of Lewiston’s next two runners, Faisal Abdillahi and Justin Leclair, could mean just as much.

“You always know who the contenders are going to be, but (cross country running) is always the most unpredictable (of the sports),” Putnam said. “It depends so much on individual circumstances. In basketball or football, you can have one guy step up and almost carry the day. In cross country, your best guy could run a full minute faster than he’s ever run, and that may not matter, because no one runner can carry the load. It only takes one runner being off.”

On the girls side, Mt. Blue is the area’s top contender in Class A, having placed second at both the KVAC meet and at Eastern regionals. The Cougars couldn’t break up Brewer’s big pack at the regional meet, but they’re hoping some of the better Western A teams can help crack the Witches’ group.

In Class C, Winthrop, Monmouth and Lisbon will look to rebound from a 2-3-4 finish at the boys’ Western regionals and try to bring the state crown back to the MVC. Alex Branson and Ethan Masselli will lead the Greyhounds, Patrick Romar and Kevin Leavitt will pace the Ramblers, and the Mustangs will look to Matt McCollett and Pat McInnis at the front of their pack.

The Lisbon girls, after claiming the MVC crown, stumbled a bit against a string Waynflete team in the Western regionals and fell to second place. With more displacement from a tight Eastern race, the Greyhounds might have a chance to steal the race this weekend.

For a complete list of runners in each class, those interested can visit www.sub5.com and click on the high school cross country link.