TURNER — Nothing came easy Saturday for the Winthrop High School boys cross country team. Then again, championships seldom do.

The Ramblers waited nearly an hour before finding out they had beaten four-time defending champion Lisbon for the Class C state championship, their first ever in the sport.

“We’ve been looking forward to this for four years,” Winthrop senior Danny Soltan said. “We knew we had a chance this year and we did it.”

Soltan, who won the Western Maine Regional last week, had an off day by his standards, finishing ninth in a race won quite handily by Hall-Dale’s Wade Davis. But his teammates took up the slack, enabling them to beat the second-place Greyhounds by three points.

Results weren’t announced until the awards ceremony in the gym at Leavitt High School where the Ramblers found they won by a scant three points.

“I knew based on the finishing I saw, it was going to be within five points,” Winthrop coach Jay Lindsey said.

The Ramblers drew a predictably strong race from senior Tor O’Brien who finished second, 16 seconds behind Davis. But it was the third, fourth and fifth runners who made the difference in the win, according to Lindsey.

Justin Carpenter finished 17th for Winthrop, Kevin Leavitt 21st and Alex Cottrell 25th. “They ran a gutsy race and they knew that every person they beat could be the difference,” Lindsey said.

Davis ran a strong race for the Hall-Dale boys who finished third. Last week, he ran second to Soltan in the regionals and the week before he won the Mountain Valley Conference race, which included Winthrop and Lisbon.

“I tried to go out fast and hold it,” Davis said.

With a steady rain falling, conditions steadily deteriorated with each passing race. The Class C boys ran the fourth of six races.

“It was pretty wet and slippery,” Davis said. “I think generally (the course) was faster than last week’s, but the mud slowed it down.”

Hall-Dale teammate Ryan Leach placed 12th while Monmouth’s Matt McCollett took 10th to help the Mustangs to a fourth-place finish.

Magen Ellis finished second, seven seconds behind Waynflete’s Adele Espy. Both runners needed attention in the recovery tent as they went all out the last half mile.

“She was just there the whole time,” Ellis said of Espy. “I never really got rid of her.”

Ellis finished 11 seconds behind Espy at the regionals last week.

“I thought Magen ran a fantastic race,” Hall-Dale coach Brad Brown said. “Adele Espy won the Festival of Champions. She’s clearly one of the best runners in the state of Maine and New England.”

The Monmouth girls finished third in Class C behind Waynflete and Mattanawcook. Kerstin Grenier led the Mustangs with an eighth-place finish. She finished one spot ahead of Lisbon’s Kayla Moan, enabling Monmouth to edge Lisbon by two points.

“On paper we knew Waynflete and Mattanawcook were the two teams that were going to win this meet,” Monmouth coach Rick Amero said. “Our goal was to come in and finish third. Every girl had a job to do and they did it.”

The winners in each class qualified for the New England meet scheduled for Nov. 10 at Twin Brooks Recreation Center in Cumberland. After that, the 22 best individuals regardless of class qualify for the meet.

In addition to Davis, Maranacook’s Jacob Knox (12th in Class B) qualified for the boys. Also, the Winthrop boys qualified as a team by virtue of their first-place finish. On the girls side, Ellis qualified along with Maranacook’s Jenny Monsulick, who finished seventh in Class B.

Cony’s Luke Fontaine finished 10th in the Class A race, the last of the day, and missed qualifying.

“It was in pretty rough shape by the time the A’s got to run,” Cony coach Shawn Totman said of the course.

Gary Hawkins — 621-5638

ghawkins@centralmaine.com