LEWISTON – A year ago, the Brewer girls track team walked into the Bates fieldhouse as heavy favorites, struggled all day long, and walked away from the state Class A championships disappointed.

Perhaps most humbled by the experience was the vaunted distance corps, which combined to score all of one point.

On Monday, distance runner Kim Hews paused to make a quick phone call before leaving the very same fieldhouse after another state meet.

The gist of the conversation: “Don’t wait up for us.”

Hews and her teammates weren’t going to Disneyworld. They were going to Orrington. To put toilet paper on their coach’s house.

By the time coach Dave Jeffrey reads this, the paper will have been spread. But he won’t mind a bit.

That’s just one of those things that happens when a bunch of state champions get together to celebrate.

The Witches scored 38 points in the first three events — one of which was a distance event – and iced the win with a clutch performance in the two mile to exorcise the demons of ’97’s flop and win their sixth state title.

Brewer scored 68 points, Edward Little of Auburn came on strong late to take second with 56, while Mount Ararat of Topsham had 54. Biddeford had 46 and Portland 41.

On the boys side, Cheverus of Portland dominated, outscoring runners-up Edward Little 110-61. Waterville was third with 39, while Portland (33) and Westbrook (29) rounded out the top five. Bangor was ninth with 13, while Eastern Maine champ Brewer finished 11th with eight.

After last year’s girls performance, Jeffrey decided to make a change in his coaching staff. He fired himself as jumps coach and hired himself to coach the distance runners.

The message: This is a priority.

“To me, one of the reasons I took the distance runners was I didn’t want to come here and score one point again,” Jeffrey said.

Point taken.

The Witches got a 3-4 finish in the mile from junior Rachael Bodkin-Rubino and freshman Heather Jovanelli to start things off, then relied on the same tandem to ice the win.

The Witches also got an early win from Jen Puiia in the long jump, and posted an unexpected 2-3-4 finish from assistant coach Chris Libby’s pole vaulters – Becca Smith, Michelle McLaughlin and Abby Bouzan-Kaloustian.

That gave them the start they needed.

“That showed the girls that we were here and were competitive,” Jeffrey said. “And last year wasn’t gonna happen again.”

That was apparent after just three events, when Brewer had eclipsed their point total for the entire ’97 meet. Last year, they scored 30. Already, they had 38.

Mount Ararat got two wins from Jen Moreau (mile, 800), one from Freddie O’Farrell (pole vault) and just missed another when Amy Pettigrew’s state record triple jump was eclipsed by EL freshman Ashley Cass’ 35-1 effort in the final jump of the competition.

With two events left, the Witches trailed Mount Ararat by two, and led Biddeford by two.

Re-enter the distance corps. With authority.

Both Bodkin-Rubino and Jovanelli ran season bests. Bodkin-Rubino took second. And Jovanelli put an exclamation point on the win when she allowed Mount Ararat’s Maggie Hanson to pass her on the last lap, but responded.

Hanson took a five-yard lead off the final corner, but Jovanelli reeled her in down the stretch. When Hanson drifted to the outside of lane one at the finish line, Jovanelli dove inside to take third on the lean.

“We both wanted to prove to everybody else that we could do it,” Bodkin-Rubino said.

“We were on the starting line freaking out, because we were behind. Once the race started, it was OK.”

The Brewer win was its first state title since 1988, and came just in time for senior Jen Corbett.

“We’ve been close the past two years,” Corbett said. “It’s a big relief that the whole state knows who we are and what we can do now.”

Edward Little sprint ace Zoey O’Sullivan won two events and anchored the victorious 800-meter relay team. She said the Red Eddies’ performance surpassed her expectations.

“I’m very happy for the team. We thought that we weren’t going to score as highly as we thought,” she said.

In the boys meet, Cheverus coach Charlie Malia admitted that he may be calling it quits after this year.

If so, the Stags gave him a great going-away present: The lopsided win was Malia’s 46th state title in either cross country, indoor or outdoor track.

“We knew we had more athletes than everyoe else, but you’ve got sickness, you’ve got injury, you’ve got complacency [to deal with],” Malia said. “A lot of things you’ve got to overcome. And we did that.”

There was never any doubt about it, as the Stags led 40-22 after five events and cruised to the win.