POLAND — Kendra Lobley was a self-described “mental wreck” before the Western Maine Conference championship meet on Oct. 7.

“I wasn’t really concentrating on running and just getting out there and doing my best,” the Poland Regional High School senior said. “I was just thinking about winning and the pressure.”

Lobley said the self-imposed pressure helped push her back to a fifth-place finish, 47 seconds behind champion Heather Evans, a York freshman. It was a disappointing result, but one Lobley has learned from and plans to improve upon at this Saturday’s Western Class B regional meet at Twin Brook in Cumberland.

Coming off a junior year in which she finished third in Western B, seventh at the state meet and 113th at New Englands, Lobley has been pointing to this year’s regional and state championships to showcase her running talent.

“Every meet that she’s run so far this year, pretty much, she has trained through, because she doesn’t really focus on those meets. She’s looking forward to the big meets at the end of the season,” Poland coach Sean Galipeau-Eldridge said.

The problem is Lobley hasn’t had many meets during the regular season where other runners have been able to push her, so preparing for the big meets has involved a bit of guess work.

“It has been tough,” Lobley said. “I’d say this year was the biggest struggle with the whole mental mind game of it all, because I have trained. But I guess it’s just a matter of being prepared for the meets and knowing in my mind that I will go out there and do my absolute best and just to keep pressing on. It’s definitely been hard not really having, I guess, a lot of competition at the regular-season meets because it’s tough to know whether you’re pushing yourself enough.”

Lobley has mixed results in the few meets against the toughest competition. For example, when she faced Evans the first time in a home meet on Sep. 17, Lobley won the meet by 16 seconds. Evans more than doubled that gap at the conference meet, then bested Lobley by 18 seconds in Kittery one week later.

“It was interesting, because 16 seconds had been the closest anyone had been to her all season,” Galipeau-Eldridge said. “Then she didn’t see (Evans) again until conferences and so didn’t know exactly what to expect. Kendra likes to go really fast, set a hard pace and kind of see what shakes out. She went out a little fast that day, and she would admit that she would probably run it differently if she could go out and do it again.”

In the third meet, Lobley tried a more conservative approach in the beginning and went out slower, perhaps a little too slow.

“They’re figuring each other out a little bit,” Galipeau-Eldridge said. “It will be interesting to see what happens at regionals.”

Lobley thinks the Twin Brook course and a revised game-plan could help her close the gap.

“I’m trying to stay more focused on running my own race, not trying to follow somebody or starting out too fast, just concentrating on the right things,” she said. “I do like the course. I like the hills a lot and I love how most of it is in the woods. I think that will help, having the familiarity with it.”

Of course, beating Evans is one thing. Racing with two-time defending regional and state champion Abby Mace of Maranacook could be another.

“I’m definitely going to go hard, not at a crazy pace or anything,” she said. “I’m going to try to maintain a good steady pace then start increasing in speed after the first mile-and-a-half.”

If it comes down to a foot-race in the final half mile, Lobley could have a big advantage. She’s the defending indoor and outdoor 800-meter champion in Class B. Track has been her favorite sport in high school, but she credits her coaches with making cross country an enjoyable and rewarding experience.

Regardless of how she fares at regionals and states, Lobley has already left an important legacy for the still young cross country and track programs at Poland, according to her coach.

“She’s done some really great things for our team,” Galipeau-Eldridge said. “We had a boy here, Nick Williams, who had been as successful, and it’s been nice for the girls to have that type of leader.”

Lobley hopes to continue running in college, and is considering Lipscomb University, Bowdoin, Colby, University of Maine, University of Southern Maine and Ithaca College, with Lipscomb, a Division I school, being the preference.

Whether she ends her high school career on a winning note over the next few weeks isn’t Lobley’s primary concern. It’s all about winning the mind game.

“Even if someone beats me, I just want to run the absolute best race that I can and not back down,” she said. “Just stay tough the entire way.”