It was no secret Boothbay Region High School would perform well at the Mountain Valley Conference preview on September 25, however the clobbering exacted on 10 opposing teams illustrates a fine point. The Seahawks mean business.

The clock had hardly ticked off 20 minutes and Boothbay's fifth runner, Jack Hasch, had already crossed the finish line, securing the 35-point victory over the closest contending team. There were 95 runners in the boys race and the Seahawk frontrunners averaged a time of 18:56 minutes on the 3.1 mile course.

Leading the pack for Boothbay was Benn Scully (18:03; third overall), Robert Campbell (18:39; seventh overall), Joey Paolillo (18:54; ninth overall), Matt Burnham (19:19; 10th overall) and Jack Hasch (19:42; 15th overall).

During the girls race the Lady Seahawks almost pulled off the victory, nipping at the heels of the Lisbon Greyhounds by just one point. Sophia Thayer (21:27) took first place for her second consecutive race, followed by scorers Hannah Morley (22:22; third overall), Morgan Crocker (23:31; 14th overall), Kate Friant (24:04) and Shaw Pinkham (26:37).

The Lady Seahawks welcomed new recruits Shaw Pinkham, Ashley Reed and Brooke Alley to the roster. The additions will hopefully provide a more support to the squad, said Boothbay coach Lauren Forgues.

“I'm psyched to have three new girls,” Forgues said. “We definitely cinched up the gap we had between our fourth and fifth girl with all three of the new girls filling that void.”

The new additions boosted the Lady Seahawks roster from six to nine members, providing scorers more evenly spread throughout races. 

Although the promising results at the MVC preview might have been a glimpse into the crystal ball for the MVC championships on October 19, the regional and state championship are still over a month away, and Forgues said there will be a lot of training in the next four weeks. 

This season Forgues has implemented a rigid regiment of endurance and speed drills created by coach Nick Scott, who took this season off to focus on family health matters. Forgues said taking over the helm can be a bit overwhelming and stressful, but she's been very lucky to inherit such a spirited team.

“It's definitely been fun to work with kids that really enjoy this sport. They understand the situation, and they've been great to me,” Forgues said. “That makes it easy on me.”

The regular season breaks for one week and will resume October 9 in Lisbon. In the meantime the Boothbay boys and girls teams will compete in Belfast with 1,500 runners at the Festival of Champions on October 5.