One of the biggest high school sporting events in recent memory gave runners a chance to test out the course at Trow Howard Middle School in Balfast this weekend.

In all, more than 1,200 runners from dozens of teams across Maine made the trek to Belfast for the Festival of Champions, a cross country race with an alternative format that many teams can use to gauge where they stand against teams from other classes.

The Lewiston Blue Devils boys team fared the best of any local schools, finishing third as a team, behind Class B Greely and Class A Scarborough.

The Red Storm swept the girls and boys races.

Matt Driscoll was the fastest Lewiston runner, blazing the trail in 16:43.5/ Robbie Leeman was the second Blue Devils across, coming in 16th in 17:28.4.

Lewiston total of 136 points from five runners was 44 behind Scarborough, with most of that distance coming fron the teams’ fifth runners.

Mt. Blue was the next-best local entry with its sixth-place finish, while Winthrop was 15th overall, and second overall among Class C boys teams behind Boothbay.

On the girls’ side, the Cougars carried the KVAC banner well, finishing third overall, behind the Red Storm and MDI.

Lewiston was the next local finisher, placing 17th in the girls race. Lisbon, a preseason favorite in Western Class C, was the top Class C school in 27th position.

Thanks for the invitation

Poland High School’s girls cross country team is on a roll.

Its latest victory came this week in the five-team Lake Region Invitational, held Friday in Naples.

Kendra Lobley paced the race for the Knights, besting teammate Natasha Piirainen by almost two minutes to claim the individual crown. Piirainen finished second, and none of the Poland top five finished worse than sixth.

St. Dom’s snuck in at No. 2 in the meet with top-10 finishes from Carloyn Joseph and Naomi McGonagill.

On the boys’ side, Poland’s David Provencher and Dylan Lajoie went 1-2 to lock up a second-place team finish.