The Scarborough boys and Falmouth girls both took home team titles, and each had a performer in a starring role to help capture their respective crowns at Hampden Academy.
Sam Rusak was a one-man wrecking crew for the Red Storm. The junior won four individual events — the first time anyone has done that at the Class A meet since the 1970s — to accrue 40 points on his own. Scarborough as a team scored 84.5 points to easily out-distance runner-up Falmouth. The Yachtsmen scored 55 points to edge South Portland by a single point.
The Falmouth girls had a closer contest, scoring 75 points to runner-up Lewiston’s 62. Cheverus was third with 60 points.
Rusak took first place in the 110-meter high hurdles, high jump, pole vault and the 200-meter dash.
“It’s indescribable, really. Just the full year’s work just coming off, it feels amazing,” Rusak said.
He felt good about his chances in his two field events and the hurdles, but was seeded third in the 200-meter dash, and said he would have been happy to finish in that spot. Rusak had to jump ahead of Deering’s Paolo DeMarco (who finished second) and Falmouth’s Matt Polewaczyk (third) to win what he called “definitely” his most surprising win.
Rusak scored nearly half of his team’s points, and would have finished seventh by himself (just ahead of Lewiston, with 38 points). But he knew every point mattered for his team to win the title.
“Coming in, we were seeded to lose by half a point,” Rusak said. “I think our team doing well all around is amazing.”
Adelaide Cooke didn’t emulate Rusak’s four wins, but she won two of her own, and scored in four. She swept the girls’ discus and shot put (setting personal records in the process), to go along with a second-place finish in the javelin and fourth place in the 100-meter hurdles.
“Personally, I had an awesome day,” Cooke said. “Four events, that’s obviously tiring.”
Cooke was equally as excited about her team’s championship performance.
“It’s one thing to win an individual award. It’s a whole different thing to win as a team because you got all these girls, they’re like your best friends, you just go out there and win it with them. It’s an awesome feeling,” Cooke said. “I definitely think we had a chance. I didn’t know if we’d pull it off, but I believed that theses girls could do it, and we did.”
Lewiston also had some standout performances. Kayla Allen repeated her title in the racewalk, Jenny Martin won the 300-meter hurdles, Adela Kalilwa won the long jump, and the Blue Devils beat rival Edward Little for the 400-meter relay title.
Lewiston coach Paul Soracco said he was “very surprised” his team was able finish as the runner-up.
“We knew we’d have a few girls that would compete and do well,” Soracco said. “Everybody was at the top of their game today, and that’s what we had to do to be competitive. We didn’t have enough to win it all, but I’ll take a second-place, runner-up in a state championship any day.”
Allen didn’t have her best day of the season, but her winning time of 7:27.15 beat her championship time last year by more than four seconds.
“It was a little off of what I was hoping for, but I’m pretty sure I beat my time from states last year, so in a sense I got a PR,” Allen said.
Kalilwa was also a repeat champion, and she also beat her best effort from last year — and best-ever for that matter. She had a best jump of 18 feet, 3¾ inches to break the Class A meet record.
“It’s nothing that I was thinking of. My goal was just beat my record, PR,” Kalilwa said. “I was like, ‘Today, I have to leave it out here.'”
Kalilwa also finished second in the triple jump and anchored the 400 relay team. Martin was the third leg of the relay, and added a second-place finish in the 100 hurdles and fourth place in the 200 dash to her full day.
The Lewiston boys got a big day from Osman Doorow in the long-distance runs. Doorow narrowly won the one-mile, then had a little bit easier time in winning the two-mile.
“I knew this year it was going to be my time,” Doorow said after following former teammate Isaiah Harris’ win in the mile last year.
The Edward Little girls finished in fifth place, with 50 points. Britanee Nouchanthavong gave the Red Eddies a victory in the girls’ javelin. She defended her title from last year with a personal-best throw of 129 feet.
“I was surprised,” Nouchanthavong, who won with a throw of 113 feet last year, said. “I don’t even know. My first throw was 122, which that was pretty awesome. And I told myself, ‘I might as well PR again.’ It came out of nowhere, basically.”
The EL boys — who finished eighth, with 33 points — got wins from Spencer Dunn in the racewalk and Cole Butler in the javelin.
The win was Butler’s third straight state championship in the event, and second in Class A for EL. He won the Class C title last year at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics.
“It means a lot. It’s been a pretty good three years,” Butler said.
His winning throw went 169 feet, 8 inches. He was hoping for more after breaking his personal record last week and getting close to the school record, but he hurt his elbow on his third throw of the prelims and missed his three attempts in the finals. He hopes to be back healthy for the New England Championships.
Mt. Blue’s Nate Pratt-Holt finished third in both the long and triple jumps to score all 12 of the Cougars’ points on the boys’ side. The Mt. Blue girls went home with the Class A North sportsmanship award.
The Oxford Hills boys scored eight points, with Dawson Stevens in the 100 dash and javelin and Zane Dustin in the 400 accounting for all of them.
Maighread Laliberte placed in both the discus and shot put to accumulate five points for the Oxford Hills girls.
Other performances of note were South Portland’s Dan Guiliani breaking his own meet record in the shot put with a throw of 67 feet, 3 1-4 inches, and Cheverus’ Emily Turner winning three individual events — the 100-, 200- and 400-meter dashes.
Cony’s Matt MacGregor won wheelchair-division titles in the 100 and 400 dashes and the discus and shot put.
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
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