Porter Hurteau and Teddy Tremblay continued their season at the Region 1 United States America Track and Field (USATF) Cross Country Championships on Sunday, November 20 in North Berwick, Maine. Both compete on a Green Mountain Athletic Association team. They’ve teamed up with six runners from St. Johnsbury to qualify for and compete in this year’s Nationals in Texas at Texas A&M University’s Cross Country course. USATF is made up of 56 federations that make up 15 regions across the United States.
The Green Mountain Athletic Association is part of the New England Association, which includes Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Region 1 consists of the following associations: Adirondack, Connecticut, Long Island, Maine, New York and New England.
USATF Championships consist of 2-year age groups. Each group can send the top 30 individuals and top five teams from each of those age groups from the federation meetings to the regional meetings and the same numbers to the national championships. The team received a waiver to miss the New England Association Championships as the High School New England Championships were held the day before. The team competes in age groups 15-18. The 17-18 age group tends to have fewer athletes, so they combine the 15-16 with the 17-18 group for team scoring.
On Sunday, the team saw its competition for the first time. St. Johnsbury’s Andrew Thronton-Sherman and BFA-St. Albans’ Porter Hurteau was in the lead for most of the race. Andrew placed third overall and first in the 15-16 age group, and Porter finished fourth overall and second in the 15-16 age group.
St. Johnsbury had the next four runners across the line for the team. Carson Eames finished eighth overall and fourth in the 15-16 age group. Nathan Bernier placed 17th overall and 10th in the 15-16 age group. Isaac Lenzini was 23rd and 13th in the 15-16 age group. Nathan Lenzini placed 30th overall and 14th in the 17-18 age group. BFA’s Teddy Tremblay placed 38th and 19th in the 15-16 age group. Ari Leven placed 40th overall and 20th in the 15-16 age group.
As individuals, all eight runners qualified for the Nationals. As a team, they finished in second place to qualify for the Nationals on December 10. There were seven complete teams; The scores were as follows: Sentinel Striders of Rhode Island had 28 points, GMAA 50 points, New England Elite of Massachusetts 51 points, Valhalla Running Club of New Hampshire 99 points, Nashua PAL Striders of New Hampshire 151 points, Prospect Park of Brooklyn, NY 177 points and Granite State Flash 181 points.