TURNER — After the first lap around her home course, Leavitt Area High School’s Julia Labbe felt comfortable enough to pull away from the field on the second and stay there. She held off the field to win a big regular-season KVAC meet at Leavitt on Friday.

The senior set a personal record with a time of 20:43, finishing 11 seconds ahead of Molly McGrail of Maranacook, who made a late push for second while overtaking Jillian Richardson of Edward Little.

“When I was coming across the field, I could tell they were getting a little slower,” Labbe said. “This is my last year, so I wanted to push myself as hard as I could and keep my steady pace.”

Leavitt coach Dustin Williamson was impressed that Labbe was able to keep a sizable lead for the second half of the race.

“That’s some good words to describe that, she was on fire from start to finish. Williamson said. “It was a great, smart race and led the whole time which is hard to do, especially like today, with a lot of great runners.”

When Labbe came out of the woods in the second lap all by herself Williamson knew she was in the right frame of mind.

Richardson wished she could have made her move with Labbe.

“I don’t think I had a strong enough mindset because I should have gone with her,” Richardson said. “I’ve got to work on that.”

Rounding out the top five were Alexa Brennan of Messalonskee (21:20), Maggie Hickey of Mt. Blue (21:33) and Maddie Taylor of Maranacook.

Messalonskee won the team event in the girls’ race, edging out Maranacook, 44-47. Mt. Blue finished third with 67 points, while Lewiston came in fourth, Monmouth fifth, EL sixth and Oxford Hills seventh.

In the boys’ race, Tucker Barber of Mt. Blue passed Jacob Gamache as they came out of the woods on the final lap. Barber put some space between himself and Gamache down the stretch. Gamache had one last burst of energy at the end to close the gap, but Barber crossed the line at 16:35 to Gamache’s 16:36.

Barber let Gamache and others set the early pace, especially in the first lap, and conserved his energy to the end.

“I was trying to think, ‘They are up there, I want to be up there, but I don’t want to get too much in my and run harder then I can,'” Barber said. “I tried to slowly inch up on them and strike when I felt like I could.”

Mt. Blue coach Kelley Cullenburg said she doesn’t want Barber to become too predictable when he makes his move.

“That has been working in his favor, but you know, we don’t want everybody to know that’s his style,” Cullenberg said. “Like I said, we are trying to change things up a little bit. He’s very strong in the second part of the race and I think races like this is going to help them believe he can be strong right from the get go.”

Gamache knew he had to go out early and hope the early built up would be enough to hold off Barber. When he got passed with about half a mile go he knew it was a perfect opportunity to work on a key technique to close the gap at the end.

“It’s one of the things I wanted to work on this season, I never had a strong kick (to end a race),” Gamache said. “I have been doing some work on it during practice and I am starting to get stronger with it — it works good too.”

Zachariah Hoyle of Messalonskee, another early pace setter, finished in third, nearly 30 seconds behind the top two finishers. Isse Tawane of Lewiston finished fourth, six seconds behind Hoyle with a time of 17:09. Zeke Robinson of Mt. Blue rounded out the top five.

The two Cougars in the top five helped Mt. Blue win the team competition with 41 points. Lewiston came in second with 78 points, three ahead of EL. Oxford Hills came in fourth with 89 points followed by Maranacook, Leavitt and Messalonskee.

“I think it was a good solid effort from everybody whether it was from the first runner or the 21st runner,” Lewiston coach Rebecca Dugan said. “I am happy the way kids moved their way up through some packs and got a couple of places after the second mile. It was a decent day.”

EL coach Justin Richardson wasn’t concerned about the results, but rather using Friday’s race as a prep race for later in the year.

“I am happy, but at the same time, we aren’t training for today,” Richardson said. “We are training for regionals, KVACs with those meets in mind. This week was really a tough week for the kids. I told them their legs would be tired today and they said their legs were tired. We went out and I wanted a hard effort and I think we did that.”

nfournier@sunjournal.com