Maine news, sports, weather | Kennebec Journal, Augusta, Maine

CROSS COUNTRY: Ladd, Nagy cruise

By Matt DiFilippo mdifilippo@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer

AUGUSTA -- Both the boys and girls individual top finishers posted easy victories at Friday's Scot Laliberte Invitational. Messalonskee's Harlow Ladd is a familiar face, while Lawrence's Erzsie Nagy was running her first high school cross country race.

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Lawrence's Elizabeth Nagy runs the Laliberte Invitational on Friday at Cony High School in Augusta.

Staff photo by Joe Phelan

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Messalonkee's Harlow Ladd leads the Laliberte Invitational on Friday at Cony High School in Augusta.

Staff photo by Joe Phelan

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The boys and girls ran together, and Ladd finished first overall, completing the 2.4-mile course in 13 minutes, 25.61 seconds. Mt. Ararat's Andy Reifman-Packett was second, in 14:09.24.

Nagy placed 26th overall and made the boys individual race look like a squeaker. Her time was 15:30.02, well ahead of the next girls finisher, Brunswick's Teresa Murphy, who clocked in at 16:57.15. Maranacook senior Abby Mace, who won this race the past three years, is healthy but opted not to race.

"I wanted to be competitive," Nagy said. "The other girls that are running this race are also really strong, so I knew I had lots of competition, even without Abby."

Winslow's Molly Schassberger was third among girls runners with a time of 17:09.20. Brunswick won the overall boys and girls team championship with 661 points, followed by Mt. Ararat (798) and Mt. Blue (809).

The race is named in honor of Laliberte, a former Cony runner who was killed in a car accident in 2000. Tom Wells coached Laliberte at Cony and spoke about him before he announced the start of the race, which was run on a day with temperatures in the 80s.

"It rained pretty hard yesterday. There's a hurricane on the way," Wells said. "Look up in the sky, folks. That's a metaphor for the way Scot lived his life: Every day was filled with sunshine."

Nagy, a junior and standout swimmer at Lawrence, took up track and field this spring and placed second in the 1,600 meters and third in the 800 at the Class A state championships. While the cross country distance is much longer, she has competed in road races.

"It's a lot different than a road race, but I've done Winslow's cross country course during the summer," Nagy said. "That helped me a lot for this, I think, because their course is really difficult and the same kind of terrain.

"I didn't have that much of a plan -- just to run pretty hard," Nagy added. "I think I did, because I'm really tired."

Ladd, a senior at Messalonskee, took a different approach but still bettered his time from last year's race by 18 seconds.

"I went out really slow, and it showed me that I'm not in the shape I want to be in right now," Ladd said. "I'm a little bit behind, but I'm going to take that as a good thing, because last year, I think I started out too strong, and I burned out. This year, I'm looking to steadily increase the whole way and peak at Foot Locker and New Englands."

Ladd said he couldn't even tell by running the course that it had rained Thursday. He even wore short spikes, albeit without socks.

"I really wish I would have (worn socks)," Ladd said, inspecting his left foot. "You can see I'm bleeding right there a little. That's a blister up there. This spot -- is there a black spot? Yeah, that hurts a lot. But, whatever. It'll go away."

Matt DiFilippo -- 861-9243

mdifilippo@centralmaine.com