The Cumberland High girls earned important victory in Maine and star runner Kiley DeFusco may have made a case for herself as a possible contender for the individual state title in early November.
In their annual trip to Belfast, the Clippers took down two-time defending titlist Bonny Eagle at Saturday’s Maine Festival of Champions (FOC) by scoring 147 points. The Trojans finished with 170 points for second.
DeFusco dipped under 19 minutes for the first time in her career by placing ninth overall with a time of 18:51.22. The Clipper junior was just ahead of fellow state rival, Erin von Housen of Chariho, who was 11th in 18:51.22.
The FOC judges it team score by combining the results from all three races at the meet (seeded, unseeded and freshmen). Tenth-grader Charli McCue, last year’s frosh winner, was 27th and junior Rose Tuomisto was 30th in the seeded race. With their top-10 finishes in the Freshmen race, Anna Bianchi (second, 39th overall, 20:06.33) and Gabby Stoothoff (eighth, 75th overall, 20:58) broke into the scoring for the Blue & White .Bianchi just missed making it two in a row for Cumberland in the frosh race, finishing just seven hundredths of a second behind individual winner Addison Elliott of Hampden Academy (ME).
The Clippers, who were sixth in the Championship race at last weekend’s Ocean State Invitational, won their second title at the FOC. Cumberland also took the 2016 crown.
“Outstanding effort by the girls today against a very talented field,” said head coach Marty Crowley. “Coach (Caitlin) Marino and I are very proud of this accomplishment.”
Sean Gray of Portsmouth was the top RI finisher in the boys’ race. He was seventh overall in the seeded race with a time of 15:49.35. The Patriots’ sophomore maintained that position in the overall results where there was a combined 875 finishers. Mount St. Charles’ Ethan Fadden was tenth overall with a time of 16:08.07.
