WATERBORO — Victoria Bossong already had three meet records.
It took another meet record to stop the Cheverus senior standout from completing her goal of pulling off a nearly unheard of four-win effort at the Class A outdoor track and field state championships at Massabesic High School on Saturday.
Edward Little freshman Makenna Drouin capped her impressive debut track season by earning a state championship in the girls 300-meter hurdles (46.06 seconds). Drouin also finished second in the 100 hurdles (her time of 15.46 was four-hundredths of a second slower than state champ Alyvia Caruso of Gorham), took fifth in the 200-meter dash and eighth in the 100 dash. Last week, Drouin won four KVAC individual titles.
Edward Little’s Jacob Jackson clears the bar during the boys high jump at the Class A state meet in Waterboro on Saturday. Jackson placed third with a height of 6 feet, 2 inches. Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald Buy this Photo
The Edward Little boys finished second in Class A, highlighted by Finn Thistle’s state title in the pole vault (12 feet, 6 inches).
The Red Eddies also had a handful of runner-up finishes. Cameron Langlois took second in the javelin, his throw of 170-0 second only to Oxford Hills’ Atticus Soehren, who claimed the state title with an incredible 185-06.
Edward Little senior Jake Jackson placed second in the long jump. He also took third in the high jump and fourth in the triple jump.
Sophomore Tudum Monday took second for EL in the 110- and 300-meter hurdles. He was bested by Scarborough’s Jayden Flaker in both events, including a miniscule margin of two-hundredths of a second (40.90 for Flaker to Monday’s 40.92) in the 300 hurdles.
Bangor sophomore Anna Connors, who had finished second to Bossong in the 100 and 400 meters, grabbed the early lead in the 200 meters and never wavered, winning in a time of 24.51 seconds, breaking the mark of 24.80 set by Bossong when she was a sophomore in 2019. Bossong finished in 25.41.
“I knew I had to get out fast because Victoria is a really good competitor and I knew she’d be really strong in the last 100,” Connors said.
Bossong had set meet records in the 100 (11.73 in the semifinal), the 400 (55.08), and the 800. The last girl to win the 100, 200, 400, 800 quadruple was Cuyler Goodwin of Mt. Ararat in the mid 1990s.
“Even if I had run fresh in the 200 it still would have been a really close race. She ran really amazingly,” Bossong said. “I mean, I’m a little disappointed but I’m also really proud that I went out and did it, so I wouldn’t change a thing about the events I ran.”
In all, seven meet records fell on a hot and muggy, high-80s degree day with a tailwind helping both sprinters and jumpers. The meet, with a full slate of athletes and a large, appreciative crowd, signaled a welcome return to normalcy after the coronavirus pandemic had eliminated the 2020 outdoor season, forced cancellation of the state cross country championships and left most teams without venues to compete during the 2020-21 indoor track season.
The Bangor girls won the team title with 115 points, scoring well both on the track and in the field. Gorham (72) was second with wins in the 4×100 relay and from Caruso (100 hurdles) and Emma Carr (high jump).
Edward Little placed fifth with 44 points, paced by Drouin’s big day and Faith Small’s second-place showing in the girls javelin. Meanwhile, Oxford Hills (22) took 10th and Lewiston (11) was 17th.
Brooklyn Alexander took second for the Vikings in the girls high jump, and Megan Bickford finished second in the discus and fifth in the shot put.
Amelia Wedderburn had Lewiston’s top showing, taking fourth in the triple jump and fifth in both the long jump and the 100-meter dash.
Scarborough won the boys title with 82 points, paced by a double win from Flaker and wins by Nicholas Connolly in the shot put and senior Zach Barry, who punctuated his victory in the 800 meters with an emotional fist pump.
“It meant everything for me to win that. It’s the first time I’ve ever won. I’ve been training for it all season. I just wanted to come through for my team,” he said.
Edward Little came in a solid second with 64.5 points. Cheverus, behind Frank Morong’s double win in the long and triple jump, placed third with 55 points.
Oxford Hills, with 23 points, came in 12th, and Lewiston (11) placed 17th.
Aaron Card earned a third-place showing for the Vikings in the boys triple jump, while Lewiston’s Jabreel Muhammad-Aceto took fifth in the 110 hurdles.
SHATTERED MARK
For Bossong, the 800 was the great unknown. She had run it once as a sophomore and once this year, when she posted the fastest seed time of 2:14, about a second faster than the meet record. The Harvard-bound senior went out fast and never wavered, running consecutive 65-second laps to finish in 2:10.66, nearly five seconds faster than the mark set in 1997 by Brianna Neault of Biddeford.
Falmouth’s distance duo of Sofie Matson and Karley Piers both finished on a high note in their final meet in Maine.
Matson has been Maine’s best distance runner since her freshman year of cross country. But a week ago, at a meet at Thornton Academy, she finished fourth in the 1,600 behind Bonny Eagle’s Delaney Hesler, Piers and Thornton Academy’s Mia-Claire Kezal.
“In some ways that was a relief,” Matson said of the end of her high school career. “It’s been an interesting senior season. I’ve had some race anxiety.”
On Saturday, Matson went directly to the lead in the 1,600 and won with room to spare. Afterward, she gave Falmouth coach Jorma Kurry a long hug and wiped away a few tears, a subtle but uncharacteristic show of emotions.
“Of course that thought of not wanting to lose in my final race entered my mind,” she said. “I really just wanted the day to be an almost fun way to end my senior year.”
Piers was the victor in the 3,200, going out fast with Matson and then having more zest for a finishing kick.
“It means the world to me and obviously running against the best runner in the state the last four years and even in middle school, obviously huge congratulations to Sofie, but it does feel good to finally get a victory,” Piers said.
The other meet record on the girls’ side came from Mt. Ararat junior triple jumper Mikaela Langston, who covered 38 feet, 8.5 inches.
On the boys side, Cheverus’ Morong set a meet record in the long jump with a personal best of 23 feet, 1/2 inch — a half-inch better than the existing record — on his final jump. He also saved his best jump for last to win the triple jump with a personal best of 45-3.75.
Andrew Farr of Gorham came in as the top seed in the 100, 200, and 400 but his plans for a triple-win were undone by Aidan Walcott of Bonny Eagle. Farr did win the 400 but it was the taller Walcott who took the 100 and 200, despite a stumble out of the blocks in the 100.
“We’ve been racing each other since we’ve been young. It’s always been good competition. He always wins,” Walcott said.
Walcott held off Farr down the stretch in the 200 to win in 21.96 seconds, breaking a record set in 1996 by Nate Sergent of Gardiner.
The boys’ 1,600 meters quickly developed into a match race between seniors Tyler Patterson of Brunswick and Ben Greene of Falmouth. Greene ran right off Patterson’s shoulder until making a move and gaining a slight lead entering the final straight. As a crowd of athletes in the infield surged toward the dueling runners, Patterson responded with a counter move for the win by six-tenths of a second in 4:16.59.
Patterson also won the 3,200 meters in convincing style with a dominant final lap.
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