RUMFORD — Caitlin Douglass crossed the finish line out of breath, as one might expect after a 5-kilometer trek up and down hills and through northwestern woodlands of Maine.

Out of breath, but still smiling.

The Mt. Blue Nordic skier, the fifth of her team of six scoring skiers out of the gate, had plenty of reason to smile.

Her ninth-place finish was the fourth-best for the Cougars on the morning, cementing the team’s stranglehold on the Class A Nordic and Class A skiing overall championships.

“Our team definitely had a good race, but we all felt we could have done a little bit better,” Douglass said. “Coming off KVACs, we all thought we had our best races there. To come here, we thought the snow conditions back home were a little bit better, so we weren’t sure what to expect here. Today, we did a pretty good job of adjusting.”

Douglass’ teammate Shelby Aseltine placed second in the 5-kilometer classical event Thursday behind Fryeburg’s Janna Kurnick. Hannah Allen placed fifth, and Emily Ramsey edged out Douglass in eighth position.

“They all really help each other,” Mt. Blue coach David Nordstrom said. “They ski together, when we tour the course they’re really good about showing the younger girls how to take certain sections of the course, and they all know that they’re going to do their best.”

Not bad, too, considering the Cougars missed the wax in blustery, overcast conditions.

“It was touchy, because our first and second girls weren’t as happy,” Nordstrom said. “But our third and fourth skiers, they felt good about it. It was very touchy how the wax was different from two racers to another pair of racers on the same sections of the course.”

Mt. Ararat, which was within 15 points after the freestyle race on Tuesday, held onto its place to claim second in the Nordic competition, scoring 33 points in the classical to total 71 points for the two events.

Edward Little, meanwhile, despite suffering a pair of falls in the giant slalom back on Tuesday in the first event of the week, skied to a third-place finish in girls’ alpine combined and claimed second overall for the school in the four-event ski championship.

“The girls got third overall in cross-country in the state, and coming into the year, I didn’t even think about this as a rebuilding year,” EL coach Dan Campbell said. “I looked it as a chance to get EL back on the board at all. I think we’ve done that. What’s nice is, coming back into the program after being gone for four or five years, being able to say that EL is back in Nordic skiing.”

Hannah Mogensen led the Eddies across the line after falling — three times.

“I came around the turn (just before the bridge) and I just went face first,” Mogensen told her teammates after the race. “I don’t know what happened, and that was the third one.”

Still, the Eddies’ senior skier placed 11th to lead her squad.

Meanwhile, at Leavitt, Allison Fereshetian, the last of a long family line of ski racers, fought her way to a third-place finish in the classical event to cap her high school skiing career.

“What a great way to finish off her high school career, to finish on the podium at states,” Leavitt coach Dustin Williamson said. “There’s nothing better than that. It’s very special.”

Molly Howe of Hampden Academy scored 88 combined points to earn the win in the skimeister category this week for Class A. Kelsey Ouellette of Greely posted 120 points to earn second, while Amanda Hall of Mt. Blue placed third.

Class B

Caribou placed four skiers in the top 13 to earn a win in the Class B classical event at the Rangeley Lakes Trail Center on Thursday, which also lifted the Vikings to the Class B Nordic title.

Caribou started the day one point behind Yarmouth after the freestyle, but bettered the Clippers by 11 on Thursday.

Mt. Abram skiers Sadie James and Nola Dixon placed ninth and 10th, respectively, for the Salem school, while Maranacook’s Adrian Huntington placed seventh.

Class C

Zoe Chace of the Merriconeag-Waldorf school took first place in the Class C girls’ classical race Thursday, with teammate Teagan Wu right behind in fourth, and another, Emily Chace, in seventh. Despite the strong finishes, Fort Kent was just too deep. The Warriors posted four skiers in the top eight and claimed the Class C Nordic title.

While Fort Kent was at it, the Warriors also blasted the competition for the Class C overall title, scoring just 122 points over four events to win by 112 points over Freeport.

Livermore Falls and John Bapst of Bangor placed third and fourth.