Jennifer Martin of Lewiston High School leaps over a hurdle and finishes her winning sprint during the girls’ 100-meter hurdles at the KVAC track and field championships in Bath on Saturday. Also pictured are Isabelle Thomas of Mt. Blue, left, Kaylie Valle, middle, and Grace Fontaine, second from right, of Edward Little and Maria Bellegarde, right, of Lewiston.
BATH — Point-zero-zero-zero-zero-seven.
Edward Little claimed the KVAC Class A girls’ track and field championship Saturday at McMann Field, and it came down to .0007 of a second.
Edward Little and Messalonskee initially finished the meet with 132.5 points. But the timing crew went back to the 100-meter hurdles, which was run and broke the tie.
In the 100 hurdles six or seven hours earlier, Edward Little’s Grace Fontaine and Mt. Blue’s Isabelle Thomas tied for fourth place. They stood on the podium together and split the team points.
When the Red Eddies and Eagles were tied, that race was looked at even closer, and it was determined that Fontaine finished .00007 ahead of Thomas. So instead of earning 3.5 (half) of the seven team points for the fourth- and fifth-place finishers, Fontaine took the full four points for finishing fourth.
That pushed the Red Eddies’ total up to 133, pushing them past Messalonskee by a half-point — a margin that seems like a mile compared to the difference between Fontaine and Thomas.
“It’s pretty surreal,” Edward Little senior Kaylie Vallee said. “Because we were supposed to lose by 33 points.
“Me and my other teammates, we each scored higher than we were supposed to, so I think we just wanted it really bad.”
The Red Eddies entered the KVAC meet as the defending champions and as the second seed, but it was a distant second seed, to the Eagles. So Hefty put to good use the extra two days coaches were given to submit entries.
“I played chess. I don’t play chess, and I don’t even know anything about chess,” Hefty said. “But I went back and I looked at everything. I looked at where we could score, I looked at where we needed to bump up. I really just played the field out.
“And our kids just performed out of their minds.”
There was Vallee, who reached personal best on her final attempts in both the long jump, which she won, and the triple jump, in which she placed second.
“She (Hefty) told me that it’s up to me to help the team,” Vallee said. “And my last jump I figured, give it all I got.”
Vallee and teammate Lauren Berube finished first and second in the long jump.
There was Jillian Richardson performing above her seeds in the 1,600 and the 3,200 — in fact she won the later race by more than five seconds.
“Jillian was outstanding. She had a 10-second personal best in the mile and the 2-mile,” Hefty said. “She knew what was on the line, she knew what she needed to do to perform.
“She was huge.”
Britanee Nouchonthavong won the javelin beat her personal record the discus by nine feet, finishing second to Oxford Hills’ Maighread Laliberte.
Berube followed through on her seeding and won the pole vault.
The Eddies racked up points in the horizontal jumps, getting 18 from Vallee and Berube’s one-two in the long jump, and 14 from Vallee, Lauren Berube, Julia Berube and Fontaine in the triple jump.
Jasmin Breton and Victoria Beliveau joined Vallee and Fontaine to give Edward Little five scoring finishes (top seven) in the two hurdles, and Nouchonthavong and Olivia Jalbert combined for 12 points in each the javelin and the discus.
The points go on and on — second in the 4×100, third in the 4×800, fifth in the 4×400; Julia Berube and Jalbert scoring in the high jump; and Hanna Roy placed sixth in the 800 for two crucial points.
“This is what is what track and field is about,” Hefty said. “This is what a conference meet is about.”
It’s tough to beat the individual performance by Lewiston senior Jenny Martin. She finished first in all three of her solo events, the 100 hurdles, 300 hurdles and 200 dash.
“This is really like the first time I’ve been ready to run, and I think my time reflected it,” Martin said. “I had some hip problems and some ankle problems, and today’s like the first day they’ve actually felt really good.”
She also helped the Blue Devils place third in the 4×100 relay.
Along with the discus, Laliberte also won the shot put for Oxford Hills.
Kayla Allen continued her KVAC dominance by winning the 1,600 racewalk four the fourth time.
Lewiston finish third in the girls’ standings, while Oxford Hills tied for seventh and Mt. Blue placed ninth.
Messalonskee’s boys’ team won the KVAC championship by a whopping 27 points over first place Lewiston. Edward Little placed fourth, Oxford Hills was fifth and Mt. Blue took ninth.
Lewiston was led by sprinter Ethan Solis, who won the 400, placed second in the 200 and fifth in the 100. The 400 race was particularly tight, but Solis edged Messalonskee’s Zach Hoyle by one-hundredth of a second.
“I started kicking,” Solis said, “and something came over me and I gave it all I had.”
Also for Lewiston, Benjamin Musese claimed the triple jump title.
Edward Little had three champions, including Alex Thompson, who set a new personal record of 13 to win the pole vault.
Connor Jackson continued his trend of PRing in the 300 hurdles, and on Saturday his time of 42-flat was better than anyone else by more than a second-and-a-half.
Finally for EL, Matt Syphers took control of the 1,600 racewalk from the start and won by nearly 30 seconds.
Oxford Hills’ Dawson Stevens threw 163 feet, 9 inches to win the boys’ javelin. He also placed second in the 100 and third in the 200.
Lewiston’s Jazlyn Dumas arches over the bar during the girls’ high jump.
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