FARMINGTON — As a freshman, Melody Lam was a good runner.

The team around her? Also young, but with a lot of promise.

“She was the only one on the team who qualified for states,” Mt. Blue coach Kelley Cullenberg said. “She’s such a team-oriented person, and you could see that she made it a goal of hers that she would bring the team with her the next time.”

In each of the next three seasons, the Cougars’ girls’ team qualified for the state tournament, with Lam at the forefront of the wave of runners.

“She really became a great role model and a great leader,” Cullenberg said. “Especially as she became one of the older kids on the team and we’ve added a lot of younger kids to the team.”

Lam not only became a role model for the other runners at the Farmington school, but she helped runners and athletes across the cross country world, too, establishing a blog about her training (melodyonthelam.blogspot.com) that chronicles her journey through each season as a cross country runner and track athlete.

“She really became a student of the sports, and she’s become such an ambassador for cross country athletes across the state,” Cullenberg said.

Personally, Lam matched her best cross country time every this season, and ran — by nearly a minute — the best time by any athlete in the tri-county area.

“All season, the real focus seemed to be to try to get the girls to qualify for New Englands,” Cullenberg said. “There’s only so much of that she can control, obviously, but she did everything she could and was a positive role model and never lost sight of that.”

For her commitment to being the best runner she can be, and her commitment to her team and to the cross country running community as a whole, Lam is the 2009 Sun Journal cross country runner of the year.

2009 Sun Journal Girls’ Cross Country All Region Team

Shelby Aseltine, Mt. Blue

Gwen Beacham, Mt. Blue

Audrey Bennett, Edward Little

Addy Cullenberg, Mt. Blue

Abigail Hart, Edward Little

Melody Lam, Mt. Blue

Morgan Lee, Telstar

Kendra Lobley, Poland

Louisa Stancioff, Mt. Blue

Meagan Thomas, Lisbon