Staff photo / Dan Hiner McDonald's Carson Klase, right, tries to pull away from Lakeview's Anthony Mable-Salem during the boys edition of the Trumbull Country Cross Country Championships on Tuesday in Kinsman.

KINSMAN — The final time belongs to the runner, but the final score belongs to the team.

For Lakeview coach Sean Voorhies, cross country is the ultimate team sport. There are no replacements, substitutions or timeouts. The runners just have to understand how to win.

His Bulldogs took that mentality to the course on Tuesday evening at the Trumbull County Cross Country Championships.

Lakeview won its second county title in as many years after scoring 44 points at Badger High School in Kinsman.

“It definitely feels good to win it two years in a row because we put a lot of work in the last three or four years,” Trent Miller said. “It feels good to finally win.”

The Bulldogs came in first with 44 points. Maplewood was the runner-up with 65, Howland put up 84 points for third, McDonald came in fourth with 109, Mineral Ridge ran for 123 and fifth place, Hubbard posted 183 for sixth, Champion was seventh with 210, LaBrae tallied 238 for eighth, Girard followed in ninth with 239, Chalker was 10th with 242, Newton Falls finished 11 with 334 and Niles came in 12th with 339.

“They run a ton of miles, and this is the end result,” Voorhies said. “We’ve been working on this for the last four years, and they’re finally doing it.”

McDonald’s Carson Klase was the top runner with a time of 16:18.9. He finished 20 seconds prior to Lakeview’s top runner, Anthony Mable-Salem, crossing in second with 16:39.7.

“Personal-best time,” Klase said. “Kinda just took it from the lead and kept the hammer down the whole race.”

Howland’s Levi Armitage (16:45.3) was third, Mineral Ridge saw a fourth-place run by Dominic Pappagallo (16:48.6), fifth went to McDonald’s Joey Cappuzzello (16:52.0), Maplewood’s top runner was Andrew Donaldson (16:55.7) in sixth, then a pair of Lakeview Bulldogs came in seventh and eight in the form of Jake Langmeyer (16:58.0) and Trent Miller (17:00.5), ninth went to Maplewood’s Ethan Nevinski (17:03.1) and 10th was Howland’s Ryan Barringer (17:18.1).

Lakeview has a veteran squad this season. The Bulldogs’ top-six finishers were all seniors.

The group of Marble-Salem, Langmeyer, Miller, Mason Wheeler, Luke Whitmore and Griffin Oravec – Oravec’s time was not counted since he was outside of the top-five Lakeview times – all finished in the top 16.

“Our coach was saying before the race, ‘no light between us,'” Wheeler said. “It’s good to keep those top-five, top-seven guys all together.”

GIRLS

It hasn’t taken long for Naomi Sheesley to gain a reputation in the cross country community, and her talents were on display again on Tuesday.

The McDonald freshman took first in the girls’ race, helping lead the Blue Devils to their second Trumbull County championship in three years. She finished with a time of 19:12.7, over 30 seconds ahead of runner-up Chalker’s Abbey Castle.

“I think I did pretty good given the weather and the course,” Sheesley said.

The Blue Devils finished with 39 points. Rival Maplewood was second with 47, Howland came in third with 64 to round out a solid day, Lakeview (117) was fourth, Girard (130) finished fifth, Mineral Ridge (159) came in sixth, Badger (188) was seventh, John F. Kennedy (190) was right behind in eighth and Niles (240) rounded out the scores in 10th.

“One of our top five didn’t compete today because she’s a little sore and beat up,” McDonald head coach Robin Kapalko said. “We filled the game and were able to still come back and win the meet.”

In addition to Sheesley and Castle, Lakeview’s Jalyn Deleon came in third with a 19:59.0, McDonald’s Kylie Flere was fourth at 20:15.0, Maplewood’s Mackenzie Edgar came in fifth with a 20:27.4, another Blue Devil in Selah Sheesley was right behind in sixth with a 21.14.4, Bristol got a seventh-place time of 21:25.6 out of Jenna Perris, Maplewood’s Reagan Mahan (21.40.6) and Ava Liptak (21:50.4) took eighth and nine respectively and Howland’s Lily Lussier rounded out the top 10 with a 21:57.1.

The clock is ticking on the season already. The district tournaments will begin in a few weeks, and the state championships will take place on Nov. 6.

Kapalko said the Blue Devils are starting to “close the gap” in their times. She said the bottom runners were finishing down the board while the top runners were taking care of business.

On Tuesday, she saw her Blue Devils finish closer than they did even a couple weeks ago at the Spartan Invitational in Boardman. McDonald’s official runners all placed in the top 15.

“I think that we’re doing great,” Naomi Sheesley said. “We’re really working hard to get to state and do well.”