CUMBERLAND — Most of Zoe Carroll’s peers spent the day before the Southern Maine cross country regional championships doing things like going for a light run, hydrating and resting.

As a center midfielder on York High’s girls’ soccer team, Carroll spent Friday playing 110 minutes of scoreless playoff soccer and then scored twice in penalty kicks, only to have the Wildcats lose to Wells in a Class B South preliminary round game.

It wasn’t an ideal prep for a regional championship meet, but Carroll made it work. In her first year running cross country, the York junior won the Class B South race Saturday, covering the challenging 3.1-mile course at Twin Brook Recreation Area in 19 minutes, 14.25 seconds.

Running with a lead pack for the first 2 miles, Carroll turned it on in the final third of the race to win by a large margin. Yarmouth’s Olivia Wentworth (19:41.61) was second, with Lucy Huggett (19:48.27) placing third and leading Freeport’s impressive team victory.

“I was tired today,” said Carroll, speaking quietly. “I just told myself that the toughest person was going to win this race and I was going to be the toughest.”

Carroll joined repeat winners Samantha Moore of Portland (Class A) and Soren Stark-Chessa of Maine Coast Waldorf (Class C) as individual champions.

Falmouth (Class A), Freeport (Class B) and Waynflete were the girls’ team champions.

The top eight teams in A, top seven in B and top six in C will return to Twin Brook next Saturday for the state championship meets, along with individual runners who placed in the top 30.

Moore, the Class A state champion in 2023 but coming off a summer injury, showed she’s gaining strength as she cruised to the Class A win in 19:16.08, well ahead of runner-up Laurel Driscoll of Scarborough (19:41.86). Falmouth sophomore Georgia Moon was third (19:46.18) to lead the Navigators to a 50-point total. Portland placed second with 67 points.

Moore went to the front early and already had a significant lead at the mile mark.

“I’m feeling better than I think I’ve ever felt,” Moore said. “I actually didn’t even know if I was going to do cross country this year because of my foot and everything, so I’m really happy that I get to run the end of the season. I want to repeat this again next week by winning, and I want to get a top 10 for New Englands.”

Falmouth placed its five scoring runners in the top 23, with sophomore Parker Fox (fifth) and senior Maeve Ginevan (eighth) in the top 10. Falmouth has not won a team state championship since 2000, when it competed in Class C.

“I think today we really saw our potential, and we’ve known that we’re a deep, young team,” Ginevan said. “I think at states we should do pretty well as long as we’re all trying our best out there and pushing through the hard parts.”

In Class B, the Freeport girls were equally strong with 51 points to top York (81). The Falcons had three top-10 runners in Huggett, Lilah Hall (seventh) and Josie Spaulding (eighth).

Class C champion Waynflete scored 51 points, followed by Boothbay/Wiscasset (72). Waynflete’s top runners were Paige Alexander (third), Grace Alexander (seventh) and Lucy Olson (12th).

Stark-Chessa turned in the day’s fastest time, covering the course in 19:09.37. That was eight seconds quicker than a year ago, when Stark-Chessa became the first transgender girl to win an individual championship in Maine high school sports. She won the 800-meter title in Class C outdoor track in the spring.

After running in boys’ races as a freshman, Stark-Chessa’s presence in girls’ races in 2023 elicited grumbles within Maine’s cross country community, hateful comments on social media channels, and news coverage by outlets like the New York Post, London’s Daily Mail and Fox & Friends. That created a tense atmosphere with a significant police presence at last year’s regional meet.

“It’s been a really amazing experience,” this season, Stark-Chessa said. “Similar to last year actually. I haven’t really felt very much tension. That’s because I have a really great circle of people around me who are very loving and supportive and that really hasn’t changed. That’s one of the reasons I love this sport, and that makes me really happy to run.”

Maine law is clear that transgender students can compete in youth and high school athletics as the gender with which they identify. At least 26 states have passed legislation banning transgender athletes. New Hampshire became the first New England state to enact such a law in July.

Boothbay’s Karen Higgins ran shoulder-to-shoulder with Stark-Chessa for much of the first mile and was right on Stark-Chessa’s heels as the runners left the woods a little over 2 miles into the race. Higgins finished second in 19:26.24, the fourth-fastest time overall on the day.

“It was really close. I started off pretty fast, I wanted to get ahead,” Higgins said. “Then I just stuck with Soren most of the way and then she sped up on the downhills – really good form, by the way – and it was fun.”

Stark-Chessa said, “We were kind of joking with each other a little bit on the course. It was a very pleasant race with her. It was awesome.”