MONMOUTH – The measure of most teams’ success throughout a season can be found in the amount of improvement a team makes from beginning to end, regardless of outcome.

Monmouth’s boys’ cross country team, by that theory, might be the best team, regardless of class or even of sport, in Maine.

After an injury- and absence-riddled, fifth-place finish at the Mountain Valley Conference meet in October, the Mustangs were perched perilously close to missing even a shot at the state title.

One week later, with 89 points, the Mustangs climbed into a tie for second at the Western Regional meet, eking into the state race, but still more than 30 points off conference rival Boothbay.

“There was a lot of pride, a lot of motivation among themselves,” Monmouth coach Rick Amero said. “They felt like they had something to prove. We were in a nice position, and it was mentioned quite a bit that Boothbay was the team to beat. Everybody knew that. They were running very, very well, and there was Winthrop, and perennial champions Lisbon. We used a little bit of that as motivation.”

On race day, though, Monmouth pulled off one of the more shocking upsets of the season, racking up just 72 points to better Boothbay by nine, earning a Class C state championship.

“A couple of the younger runners … had some huge races, including the state meet,” Amero said. “It was one of those unique moments in sports where all of the kids started clicking at the right time.”

That end result, Amero said, is almost by design, though rarely does it work as perfectly as it did this year.

“Our goal every year as a program is to run our best races in October,” Amero said. “We’ve had some success over the years keeping that mentality. That’s the nice thing about cross country, that there’s no Heal Points, so you can struggle early, or you can run bad races, and all of those things can work themselves out over the course of a season, if you keep that focus on the end goal.”

Amero and co-coach Tom Menendez watched, taught and nurtured the team from Day 1 until the state meet, and turned the Monmouth cross country team into this year’s Sun Journal All-Region Boys’ Cross Country Team of the Year.