The BRHS cross country team competed at the 16th annual Festival of Champions. Sixty-eight teams from New England and Canada made up of 1,100 male and 900 female athletes marked the largest yet participation in one of Maine's largest athletic competitions.

“As predicted, the atmosphere was intense, the weather was near perfect, and the times were fast!” Coach Nick Scott exclaimed. “The New England Championships are being held in Belfast this year and because of this, many top tier programs attended the event. As a result, the competitiveness of the race was as high as I have witnessed at the event.”

Scott reported that almost everyone on both the boys and girls teams ran a season's personal record. Freshmen Mason Erhard, Fox Elder and Ryan Russell, and sophomore Pat Conlin all broke the 20-minute barrier for the first time.

“Glory Blethen placed 12th in the freshman race, but her time was fast enough that she would have placed in the event during every other year since the race was first held. Glory's time... was also fast enough to place her third on the All Seahawk team.”

Erhard ran 19:22 beating his season record by 0:45; Elder ran 19:29 beating his season record by 1:44; junior Bayly Gaughan-Carrasco ran 19:36 beating his season record by 0:24; Russell ran 19:55 beating his season record by 2:00; Conlin ran 19:55 beating his season record by 1:36; freshman Graham Harris ran 20:06 beating his season record by 2:58; junior Will LaBreque ran 20:08 beating his season record by 1:04; freshman Kaleb Ames ran 20:41 beating his season record by 2:02; senior Sam Burnham ran 21:11 beating his season record by 1:37; and sophomore Quinn Ranta ran 21:44 beating his season record by 2:20.

Freshman Glory Blethen ran 20:21 beating her season record by 1:37; junior Faith Blethen ran 20:46 beating her season record by 0:38; sophomore Delly Clarkson ran 28:14 beating her season record by 1:40; and freshman Zada Smith ran 28:20 beating her season record by 4:16.

“Zada Smith took over four minutes off from her previous best and Quinn Ranta took nearly two and a half minutes off from his fastest time of the year,” said Scott. “There were a lot of great team performances that came out of the day.”