Brewer shows off depth at relay meet Sumner sets record in distance medley

BREWER – The Penobscot Valley Conference Relays were competitive from start to finish. But the hundreds of parents and athletes who filled the Pendleton Street Track Complex Saturday couldn’t cheer for the usual phenoms of the Eastern Maine track world.

They had to cheer for everyone. Because at a meet where 15 schools combined talent and tenacity on relay teams for every event, the numbers won.

There was no team scoring in the relay meet, but the Brewer boys dominated, capturing eight of 15 relay events while the Brewer girls also outplaced any other team, taking first six times.

“One coach put it best last year,” said Sumner’s Parker Pruett, whose distance medley relay team won. “You just don’t have enough bullets to shoot them down. Brewer has a lot of people, but more than that, half of them are really good athletes.”

Pruett said the meet showcased widespread talent, and he shared in one of the meet’s more dramatic performances. Pruett, Emil Thomann, Davey Seward and Chris Wentworth made up the Tigers distance medley team that set a meet record of 10 minutes, 54.18 seconds, breaking Ellsworth’s old mark of 10:54.3 set last year, and winning the event by 23 seconds ahead of Bangor.

The distance medley relay is approximately 2 1/2 miles.

“The whole idea was to run a really fast team,” said Pruett, who ran the 1,600-meter leg of the race. “I ran a 4:25 in a meet Wednesday, and a 4:26 today. I’ve been improving all season. Coach looked at what we all could do and decided we should go for the record in the DMR.”

But with athletes – even in the field events – competing on relays, winning Saturday became not only a feat of the mighty. Placing first was also a careful balancing act of talent and teamwork.

“It’s a little more stressful,” said Peter Phelan who shared first with his Brewer relay teams in the long jump, triple jump and shuttle hurdles.

“You’re dependent on how other people do. Like in the triple jump, if Seth [Burnes] fouled his third jump, we wouldn’t have won. But it’s also better to win than as an individual because you have more people to share it with.”

Phelan, who will join the Black Bears track team next year when he goes to the University of Maine, joined with Burnes and Jacob Carr to win the triple jump with jumps totaling 117 feet, 6 3/4 inches. Phelan then teamed up with teammates Chris O’Donnell and Jeff Conlon to win the long jump (58-2 1/2). And in the shuttle hurdle relay, Phelan ended the day taking first with James Clark, Brian Goodness and Andy Duffy (38.1).

But then, the Witches have become known for their jumpers and hurdlers and Saturday they didn’t disappoint in their bounding ability.

In the girls meet, Kara Peterson, Rachel Young and Jen Corbett won the triple jump (96-7 1/2) and Carrie Murphy, Heather Stevens, Amy Allen and Young won the shuttle hurdle relay, erasing the Witches’ 1987 meet record of 42.3 with a winning time of 42.1.

“We were dying to break that hurdle record this year,” said Young, the indoor state triple jump champion. “Since we were freshmen we wanted that record. We put freshman Amy Allen on the team this year and that made the difference. We have a lot of good hurdlers at Brewer. We want to be the best.”

But, while Brewer coach Dave Jeffrey was pleased with his team’s strong showing, he was more impressed with the competition they faced Saturday.

The Bangor boys won three events and the Rams girls team won four while the Hampden and Old Town girls teams captured two events each.

“There was great competition here today, that’s what we needed,” Jeffrey said. “We were seeded to win 20 events, I didn’t think we’d win 20. I knew there was a chance others could run by us.”

Still, at the end of the day the hosts left as heroes and heroines, having won 14 of 30 events at the challenging meet. And they were proud of it.

“Brewer means hard work,” Phelan said. “The overall atmosphere on our team is that of dedication. We live and love the sport. It’s my life. That’s what the team means.”