When Mt. Blue cross country coach Kelley Cullenberg told Silver Hunt she had a chance to compete for the Class A state title, Hunt was pretty surprised.

"I told her she really had to consider the fact that she may be a state champion and she said, 'I don't think so. Aren't there faster girls than me in the West?' " Cullenberg said.

Competing in cross country for the first time, Hunt, a sophomore at Mt. Blue, didn't know what to expect all season.

It turns out she should have expected the best.

Hunt won the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class A championship, the Eastern Maine Class A title and finally the Class A state championship in her first season of cross country. For her outstanding season, Hunt has been named the Morning Sentinel Girls Cross Country Runner of the Year.

Cullenberg first got the impression that Hunt would succeed when the team visited Acadia National Park in the preseason.

Running the carriage trails at Acadia, Hunt was hanging with runners in the top 10 of the Mt. Blue boys team.

"When I saw that, I knew right away there was some potential," Cullenberg said.

Then Hunt finished fifth at the Scot Laliberte Co-ed Cross Country Invitational and got a taste for herself what type of success she could have.

As a freshman, Hunt attended Oak Hill, a school that does not have a cross country team. She ran track, training and competing with the Gardiner Area High School team, and ran middle distance events. She picked up cross country at Mt. Blue as a way to stay in shape.

She continued to learn the sport of cross country as the season progressed. At the KVAC A championship meet, for example, she planned to stay with a pack of runners for much of the race before making her move late. When she felt she felt the pack was running at a pace that would allow her to take the lead and hold on to it, she made her move.

"I was like, just go for it," Hunt said after winning the KVAC A title. "I didn't want to (get in the lead) and not have the energy at the end, but I knew I had it in me."

Hunt had significant margins of victory in all three championship meets. At the KVAC race, she finished with a time of 20 minutes, 34.9 seconds, nearly a minute faster than second place finisher Caroline Webster of Brunswick.

A week later at the Eastern A regional meet, Hunt won with a time of 19:22.04, more than a minute better than teammate Melody Lam, who was second with a time of 20:35.85. In the state championship meet, she won with a time of 20:06.23, nearly 20 seconds better than Katherine Pierce of Massabesic.

All this from a newcomer.

"She is really just getting the hang of things," Cullenberg said.

Scott Martin -- 621-5618

smartin@centralmaine.com