NAPLES — Her arms may have failed Darcy Cochran, but never her legs.
And depth didn’t fail the Poland girls, who won their first conference title.
A sophomore from Cape Elizabeth, Cochran false-started before the 100-meter final of the Western Maine Conference track and field championships Saturday when she tipped forward from the blocks.
“I had just run the 100 hurdles and I was really tired,” Cochran said. “I was sort of trembling, trying to catch my breath, and my arms just gave out.”
That setback only added more inspiration for the 300 hurdles, which she blew through in a conference-record time of 45.12 seconds – a winning margin of 2.17 seconds over Haley Smith of York.
Cochran earlier set a conference mark of 15.12 seconds in the preliminaries of the 100 hurdles and later added a third victory in the 200 (26.64).
Not surprisingly, she was named performer of the meet in track events.
Threatening skies over the track at Lake Region High School produced intermittent sprinkles and prompted organizers to move up events by as much as 90 minutes from the original schedule in order to avoid potential thunderstorms feared for late afternoon.
The compressed itinerary affected some athletes more than others, but most handled it in stride.
“I have asthma, so it was hard for me to catch my breath,” Cochran said. “The timing wasn’t too bad from the 300 hurdles to the 200. It was hard from the 100 hurdles to the 100. It was less than five minutes. I finished my race, walked back and got in my blocks.”
The WMC meet is broken into divisions of eight large schools (Division I) and nine smaller schools (Division II). York won both Division I titles. The Wildcat boys ran away from the field with 227 points to easily outdistance Freeport (78) and Greely (74). York’s girls dethroned defending champ Greely 152-115, with Cape Elizabeth third at 71.
Among Division II schools, Poland’s girls and Sacopee Valley’s boys held off Wells, which swept both crowns last spring. The Knights racked up 177 points, to 152 for Wells. Traip Academy (73) was third.
“It’s the best group of kids we’ve ever had,” said Poland Coach Rick Kramer of a 63-girl contingent. “We were getting two kids scoring in every event, so depth was an asset for us.”
Poland’s Faith Davis won the discus and the shot put. The Knights swept the jumps, with Madison Wante winning the high jump, Autumn Willis taking the long jump, and Desiree Wante finishing first in the triple jump.
Olivia Ouellette (3,200-meter run) and the 4×800 relay also were winners for Poland.
St. Dominic Academy’s Bugsy Hammerton won the Division II girls’ 200 and placed second in the 100.
In the Division I springs, Gray-New Gloucester’s Madison Post came in first in the 100 and third in the 200.
Sacopee Valley’s title was the first since 2013, and first under coach Ben Murphy. It was also the closest meet of the day, with the Hawks edging Wells 154-147. Traip (92) was third and Poland (81) was fourth.
“We had some bad stuff happen early, but good stuff at the end made up for it,” said Murphy, pointing to thirds in the 1,600 relay and from Troy Hendricks in the 800, an event won by Mitch Libby of Wells in 1:57.51.
The boys’ track performer of the meet was Cape Elizabeth senior Matt Concannon, who won the 200 in 22.92 and took second in the 100 behind Andrew Peterson of Gray-New Gloucester. Concannon also placed third in the triple jump, won by Zach Westman of York with the only leap (42 feet, 21/2 inches) beyond 39 feet.
Westman set a facility record of 39.71 in winning the 300 hurdles. He also won the long jump (20-5) and was runner-up to Concannon in the 200.
“When I found out (the meet) was being condensed, I didn’t think it would affect me as much as it did,” Westman said. “But my legs were burning.”
Gray-New Gloucester also won the Divison I boys’ 4×100 relay.
The Poland boys had Division II wins in the pole vault (Matt Thebarge), discus (Sam Stone) and shot put, in which the Knights grabbed the top three finishes: Sam Benedict was first, Gavin Russo second and Evan Kelly third.
The boys’ performer of the meet for field events was York freshman Aidan Martin, who won the shot put (42-7.75) and javelin (149-0), and placed fourth in discus.
Lake Region senior Sam DeSouza was named girls’ performer of the meet for field events. She won the discus with a school-record distance of 103-8 and the shot put at 36-11.5.
“I practice here in the rain,” DeSouza said, “so I felt prepared for it.”
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