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It is his biggest race to date, but Sam Laverdiere of Litchfield has no special strategy planned for the Brooks XC Championship on Saturday at Balboa Park in San Diego.

“I truly believe I’m going to treat this race the way I always treat any other race,” Laverdiere said by phone on Friday. “That’s knowing I have a legitimate shot to win and that I’ve worked so hard that there’s no more excuses.

“And, as you know, faith is a big part of me. And this is something I’ve learned to really trust. Even if I’m not at 100 percent, if I’m at 97 or 98, God will fill in that extra two or three percent for me. The plan is to go out and be in the top five and compete for that win.”

Laverdiere, 18, earned his trip to the Brooks (formerly Foot Locker) national high school championship with a photo-finish win at the Northeast regional in Boston’s Franklin Park on Nov. 29. Laverdiere ran the 5-kilometer course in 14 minutes, 59.9 seconds, getting to the tape just ahead of Nathan Lee of Greenwich, Connecticut.

The top 10 finishers in each regional — Northeast, South, Midwest, West — qualified for Saturday’s national championship. Ten additional runners received special invitations — what Laverdiere termed “golden tickets” — without competing in regional competition. One of the golden ticket runners is Jackson Spencer of Herriman, Utah, who won the Nike Cross Nationals last weekend.

Laverdiere will be representing the Portland-based Valor Track Club. The former Lake Region High standout is finishing up his high school degree credits as a home-schooled student. In his 2024-25 senior year at Lake Region, Laverdiere swept every championship event he entered. He claimed the Class B cross country title for a second time and completed the distance triples in both indoor (800 meters, mile, 2-mile) and outdoor track (800, 1,600, 3,200).

While Laverdiere completed his eight semesters of Maine Principals’ Association eligibility in the spring, his current high school status keeps him eligible for open competitions like the Brooks XC series.

Having what, in essence, is a gap year before college has allowed Laverdiere to take his training program to another level.

He spent four weeks in October training at altitude in the running mecca Flagstaff, Arizona. He also competed in three cross country races at the men’s 8K distance, winning as an unattached runner at the University of Maine; finishing second in the Codfish Bowl at Franklin Park to Cameron Dickson, 27, an Olympic Trials marathoner; and then fifth at the USATF-New England Open championship on Nov. 16, also at Franklin Park.

Laverdiere says he has drawn interest from several premier college programs, including Princeton, Iowa State, Indiana and Notre Dame. He also has been recruited by Dartmouth and Bates College.

With official visits still to take, “it will come down to what’s the best fit for me,” Laverdiere said.