Lauren Sterling of Mountain Valley pulls ahead to win the 100-meter hurdles at the Class C state championship track meet. The state title is Sterling’s third straight. (Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald)
WATERBORO — Another state championship meet, another state championship for Mountain Valley’s Lauren Sterling.
Sterling won the 100-meter hurdles for the third straight year at the Class C state track and field championships Saturday. Sterling, a senior, finished the race in 16.70 seconds. Monmouth freshman Mya Sirois was second, and teammate Emily Grandahl came in third.
Evan Michaud helped Caribou get to the top of the standings early in the Class C track and field meet Saturday when he won the pole vault with teammate Cory Jandreau finishing second, both with heights of 12 feet.
Five hours later, Michaud finished off Caribou’s first boys’ track title when he ran the anchor leg of the third-place 1,600 relay team – fast enough to hold off Wells and Traip Academy, the teams that finished first and second in the race, and second and third in the overall standings.
“We saw the points going into the final race and just said, ‘Don’t do anything stupid and we’ll be OK,’” Michaud said. “And then we improved our time by quite a bit.”
Caribou finished with 57 points, followed closely by Wells (54) and Traip (50). Orono was fourth with 43 points and Mountain Valley placed fifth with 37.
Mountain Valley’s fifth-place finish was paced by the efforts of Chris Glover, who finished second in the long jump to Cayden Spencer-Thompson, second in the javelin, fourth in the triple jump and anchored the Falcons’ winning 4×100 relay team.
Mountain Valley came into the meet ranked fifth in the sprint relay with a time of 46.84 seconds. Glover, Cameron Payne, Taylor Pelletier and Jasper Turner turned in a clocking of 45.57, nipping Orono by .18.
In the girls’ meet, champion Maranacook (103) and Orono (92.5) racked up points with individual standouts and plenty of supporting athletes. Maranacook’s girls, like the Caribou boys, had a one-two pole vault finish, from Nicole D’Angelo and Janika Pakulski. D’Angelo also won the shot put.
It was Maranacook’s first girls’ title since 1993.
“We were hunting for this,” D’Angelo said. “Quite a few girls came up in the seeds. I was supposed to win the shot put and the pole vault, and I did that.”
Monmouth Academy finished third in the girls’ meet with 64 points and led for much of the day after picking up early victories from Maddie Amero in the javelin and Moira Burgess in the 1,600-meter racewalk (by one-tenth of a second over Emily White of Spruce Mountain).
Spencer-Thompson of Mattanawcook Academy went 23 feet, 1.75 inches on his fourth long jump to set the day’s only meet record, breaking the mark of 22-8.75 set by Ricky Thompson of Maine Central Institute in 1977.
Spencer-Thompson also won the triple jump by more than 4 feet, traveling 46-5. He set the all-state mark last season at 47-3 and had gone over 48 feet earlier this spring.
“I was really pushing for that long jump record and I got it but I sacrificed some triple jump because of it,” Spencer-Thompson said.
The race of the day was the boys’ 800 meters, where an expected duel between rivals from southern York County lived up to the billing.
Mitchell Libby of Wells beat Dalan Hubbard of Traip Academy by six-hundredths of a second with a time of 1:59.41. Hubbard began a kick with 200 meters to go and reached Libby’s shoulder coming off the final turn.
“All last year, all this year, it’s just neck and neck every time,” Libby said. “I just tried to not look back and keep right up but he’s a trooper. He almost passed me right at the last second. I think that’s the closest race we’ve ever had.”
“I love racing against him,” Hubbard said. “I always look forward to it. I thought I had him until the last 5 or 10 (meters).”
Libby came back to win the 3,200 meters and then anchor Wells’ 1,600 relay victory. Brian Niznik of Wells won the 400 meters, and teammate Griffin Allaire captured the 1,600-meter run.
Jacob Gagner of Traip Academy was a double winner in the 100-meter dash and the 300 hurdles.
In the sprint, Gagner held off a hard-charging Darin Libby of Madison/Carrabec, then pulled away from the 110 hurdle champ, Matthew Chapman of Wiscasset, to win the hurdle race.
“It definitely helps me to have someone right in the corner of my vision just to give me that push,” Gagner said
Camille Kohtala of Orono won the girls’ 200 and 400 meters. In the 400 meters, she came from behind with a powerful sprint to track down top-seeded Molly McGrail of Maranacook, winning in 58.57 seconds – just one-tenth off the meet record.
“She definitely surprised me but congrats to her, that was so awesome. She shaved off three seconds off her outdoor track time, which in sprinting is incredibly hard to do,” McGrail said.
McGrail came back to win the 800 meters.
Olivia Reynolds won the 1,600- and 3,200- meter races. Reynolds, who is a freshman at the Maine Coast Waldorf school and competing for the co-operative North Yarmouth Academy/MCW squad, was hardly winded after completing the metric mile in 5 minutes, 14 seconds, to win by 23 seconds.
Other highlights of the meet included Chenille Eccleston of Wells breaking 13 seconds for the first time to win the girls’ 100 dash (12.98); Evan Desmond of Caribou, the third seed, chopping 37 seconds off his season-best time to win the boys’ race walk in 7:07.66; and Bangor Christian senior Austin Keib’s shot put (PR 49-1) and discus victories.
Spruce Mountain’s Emily White, left, came in second with a 7:52.53, just behind Monmouth Academy’s Moira Burgess’s 7:52.43 in the 1,600-meter race walk at the Class C state track meet Saturday at Massabesic High School in Waterboro. (Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal)
Monmouth Academy’s Moira Burgess (1) starts the 1,600-meter racewalk, which she won with a time of 7:52.43 at the Class C state track meet Saturday at Massabesic High School in Waterboro. Behind Burgess is Lisbon’s Sydney Douglass (4). (Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal)
St. Dom’s hurdler Nicholas Welsh competes in 110-meter hurdles final during Class C state track meet Saturday at Massabesic High School in Waterboro. He finished 7th in 18:12. (Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal)
Monmouth Academy runners Anna Lewis, left, and Emily Grandahl run the 300-meter hurdles during Class C state track meet Saturday at Massabesic High School in Waterboro. Lewis finished 10th and Grandahl was 14th. (Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal)
Monmouth Academy runners Anna Lewis, left, and Emily Grandahl run the 300-meter hurdles during Class C state track meet Saturday at Massabesic High School in Waterboro. Lewis finished 10th and Grandahl was 14th. (Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal)
Alan Lavoie of Lisbon came in second with a 7:11.82 in the 1,600-meter racewalk during the Class C state track meet Saturday at Massabesic High School in Waterboro. (Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal)
Sarah Brown of St. Doms, center, competes in the 800-meter run between Sophie O’Clair of Maranacook, left, and Zeya Lorio of George Stevens Academy at the Class C state championship track meet. (Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald)The field of runners come off the start in the 800-meter run at the Class C state championship track meet. Mitchell Libby of Wells, right, won the race. (Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald)Mitchell Libby of Wells, right, and Dalan Hubbard of Traip race down the stretch ahead of the field in the 800-meter run at the Class C state championship track meet. Libby edged Hubbard to win the race. (Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald)Mitchell Libby of Wells edges Dalan Hubbard of Traip to win the 800-meter run at the Class C state championship track meet. (Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald)Mitchell Libby of Wells edges Dalan Hubbard of Traip to win the 800-meter run at the Class C state championship track meet. (Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald)Mitchell Libby of Wells, left, shakes hands with Dalan Hubbard of Traip after Libby edged Hubbard to win the 800-meter run at the Class C state championship track meet. (Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald)Cayden Spencer-Thompson of Mattanawcook competes in the triple jump at the Class C state championship track meet. (Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald)Cayden Spencer-Thompson of Mattanawcook competes in the triple jump at the Class C state championship track meet. (Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald)Megan Niedzwiecki of Old Orchard Beach competes in the shot put at the Class C state championship track meet. (Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald)Brian Niznik of Wells pulls away to win the 400-meter dash at the Class C state championship track meet. (Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald)Camille Kohtala of Orono reacts after winning the 400-meter dash at the Class C state championship track meet. (Photo by Derek Davis/Staff Photographer)Maranacook’s Grace Despres, left, takes the baton from Kiana Gordon in the 4×100-meter relay during the Class C state track meet Saturday at Massabesic High School in Waterboro. (Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal)
Maranacook’s Janika Pakulski competes in pole vault during the Class C state track meet Saturday at Massabesic High School in Waterboro. (Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal)
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