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AUGUSTA — There was little drama at the finish line of the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference cross country championships Saturday. Instead, the conference’s top runners made it look easy.

Bangor’s Sam Bergmark (large school boys), Medomak Valley’s Colby Daigle (small school boys), Hampden Academy’s Addison Elliott (large school girls) and Lincoln Academy’s Karen Higgins (small school girls) won titles at Cony High School. All did so easily, with the average margin of victory between the four coming in at 1 minute, 12.8 seconds.

“It’s very hilly (here), but I enjoy it; I really like the hilly course,” said Higgins, who repeated as KVAC Small School champion. “(The conditions were good); there was only like one spot where it was a little bit slippery, but I’d say since it’s been dry, it’s absorbed it all into the trails, so it was good.”

Hampden (53 points) beat Mt. Blue (84 points) for the KVAC Large boys title, while the Lincoln boys (68) claimed the Small crown over Morse (101). Hampden and Lincoln were the girls teams champions. Hampden (21) had a wide margin over Camden Hills (65), and Lincoln (42) edged Waterville (48).

Donning the No. 1 bib, Bergmark was widely expected to lead the pack and did so, beating Lucas Demarco (17:15.6) of Mt. Blue by 36.6 seconds. Mt. Blue’s Wyatt Oliver (17:33.7), Hampden’s Jack Scott (17:38.6) and Noah Seigh (17:45.8) of Camden Hills rounded out the top five.

“I just wanted to go kind of hard because I didn’t want it to be a race — I just wanted to win,” said Bergmark, who placed third in the KVAC race year and won the Class A North title. “I just wanted to see how things were going to go, and once we got on the gravel, I went at my own speed.

Daigle’s margin of victory was even larger. The senior’s time of 17:36.9 was more than a minute faster than Cony’s Brady Cloutier (18:37.4). Lincoln’s Holden Nehrboss (18:45.4), Erskine Academy’s Brayden Dow (18:48.1) and Gardiner’s Abrahm Hasty (19:01.7) also earned top-five finishes.

Elliott and Higgins were way out in front of the girls field. Elliott’s winning time of 18:39.0 beat teammate Isabelle Clark by 1:50.2. Also finishing in the top five in the Large division were Charlotte Crowe of Mt. Ararat (20:35.9), Elsie Mann of Camden Hills (20:38.3) and Emeline Cournane of Hampden (20:43.8).

Hampden claimed its third consecutive team title. In addition to Elliott, Clark and Cournane, Silvia Ruge (21:18.6) finished sixth, Mackenzie Elliott (21:24.5) took seventh, Erin Curtis (22:18.0) placed 11th and Aubrey Shaw (22:21.3) was 12th.

“I’m just so proud of our girls,” Elliott said. “We keep getting better, and I think we ran really, really well today. I think that shared energy between (us) really fed into how we did today. … I thought (the course) was going to be really muddy and uneven, but except for the start, it was great.”

Higgins’ time of 18:56.9 was nearly a minute and a half ahead of the runner-up in the Small divison, Frida Wright of Morse (21:21.8). Hallie Coots of Nokomis (21:32.5) placed third, Carson Dunn of Waterville (21:42.6) claimed fourth, and August Miller of Lincoln (22:06.5) finished fifth.

Although the Large and Small divisions were scored separately, runners competed in the same race, creating an interesting dynamic. Elliott and Higgins were neck-and-neck for a while. It wasn’t until midway through the race that Elliott began to separate herself from Higgins, who said that going head-to-head with one of the state’s best runners was a good springboard to regionals and states.

“It was nice to have her with me, because that definitely pushed me to go under 19,” Higgins said. “Running with her, at least for the first bit, that was fun. … I think Twin Brook (next Saturday for the Class B South regional) is going to feel a bit easier compared to this.”