AUGUSTA -- Plenty of sweat, lots of huffing and puffing and mid-summer-like temperatures were the order of the day as Cony High School hosted its first-ever regular-season race on its tough new cross-country course Friday afternoon.

The 5-kilometer (3.1 miles) race attracted some of the state's top teams to the hilly trails behind the new high school and served as a good tune-up for next Saturday's Belfast Invitational.

The Mt. Blue boys and the Maranacook girls took home the first-place honors with impressive team performances. Cony finished third in both the girls and boys races.

Individual winners were Hall-Dale's Magen Ellis and Cony's Luke Fontaine.

Ellis dominated the field and was clocked in 20 minutes, 58 seconds. Fontaine (17:40) won a nose-to-nose, sprint-to-the-wire thriller against Hall-Dale's Wade Davis.

Fontaine ran in the lead throughout before Davis passed him with a quarter of mile left and pulled away on the football practice field behind the school.

But Fontaine was determined to win. He found an extra gear in the last 5O yards and sprinted to catch Davis on the short incline just before the finish line to win by one second.

"I thought I could take him on the hill," Fontaine said. "I felt terrible today. The heat got to me."

While Fontaine savored his victory, Mt. Blue put five runners among the top 10 finishers, including Kelton Cullenberg (third, 18:06), Peter Smith (fifth, 18:47), Eric Marceau (seventh, 19:10), Brody Hines (ninth, 19:14) and Jaron Jones (10th, 19:28).

Marceau, a senior from Farmington, is usually Mt. Blue's top gun, but he paced himself Friday and ran well off his personal best of 16:28.

He didn't go all out because he's running in the Manchester, N.H., Invitational race today and needed to save himself for a top effort against some of New England's best high school runners.

Still, Marceau is a game competitor who was tempted to go after Cony's Fontaine, one of his main rivals in Class A.

"I was, but instead I ran off the pace of the fifth and sixth runners," Marceau said. "Tomorrow's a much bigger race for me."

Ellis ran an impressive race for her victory. Her win, along with Davis' strong second-place effort, gave Hall-Dale a good showing and a taste of top-notch competition.

"There's a lot of decent runners in the MVC," Ellis said. "But running with Class A and B runners is a lot more competition."

Maranacook's Jenny Monsulick (21:25) was second and teammate Taylor Burr (21:56) took third. Jillian Blouin (sixth, 23:02), Emily Harriman (13th, 23:56), Catherine Nurse (30th, 26:12), Ashley Thompson (26:13) and Ashley Cox (44th, 29:16) rounded out Maranacook's point-scoring runners.

Many runners said the Rams' new course was very challenging compared to Cony's old home trail at the University of Maine at Augusta.

"This course is pretty challenging and pretty hilly," Ellis said. "It's hard, but it's good and pretty rigorous, a lot of long gradual hills. It was really nice in the woods in the shade. I love UMA because it's my home course."

Said Fontaine: "This course is very challenging. I'd say UMA is less hilly."

Marceau thought the Cony course was a fair test.

"The terrain's nice," he said. "That long hill is tough. But it's not just for hill specialists. It really proves who's going to be the fastest."

Ben Sturtevant -- 621-5636

bsturtevant@centralmaine.com