Bangor rolls, captures PVC crown; MDI, Old Town 2nd Rams collect eight events; Palmer shines in 400 relay

BANGOR – On a night of big swims for the Bangor boys, Eric Palmer made a blowout fun – and tangled things up for the rest of the field.

The Rams won early and often, and when they didn’t win, racked up enough points anyway to take the 23rd Penobscot Valley Conference championship at the Bangor YWCA’s Aloupis Pool.

Senior Scott Loukes and junior Palmer each won two individual events and swam on two relays each to help the Rams score 442 points and earn their 21st PVC title.

Old Town and Mount Desert Island each scored 180 points to tie for second place. It was the highest finish for an MDI boys team at PVCs.

Ellsworth scored 129 points and held off Brewer, which had 124.

Bangor scored the maximum of four places in each individual event and won all three relays. The Rams won a total of eight of 12 events.

Below Bangor, Old Town and MDI dueled in the pool all night. The Indians and Trojans traded places at least six times before the final event of the evening, which was to decide the runner-up. Old Town had a two-point lead on MDI before the 400-yard freestyle relay.

That’s where Palmer came in.

Bangor had the top seed for the event but Old Town had a lead after the first leg of the relay. MDI ‘s Jeff Gray caught Old Town’s Gerard Falls in the second leg and also passed James Bair of Bangor. Frosty Pepper gave MDI a big lead in the third leg and Justin Garver entered the water for the fourth leg with about three body-lengths on Palmer, Bangor’s anchor.

The water churning around him, Palmer made up Garver’s advantage and passed the MDI swimmer in the final 10 yards.

Palmer’s blazing leg – his split of about 49 seconds is a personal best in 100 yards of freestyle – gave Bangor the win, dropped MDI into second and Old Town to third. The two-point difference for the second- and third-place relays knotted the two teams.

“To be honest, when I dove in I was just swimming,” Palmer said. “If I get him, I get him. If I don’t, I’d be disappointed. The best thing I can say is I just went into the water and swam.”

The Trojans were focused on finishing well in the relays and getting at the Indians, who beat them by two points in dual meet this year.

“I was hoping that we would be pretty close to Old Town,” MDI’s Grey said. “We had a home meet with them and it was a fun meet to be at. It was off-and-on the whole meet, like this.”

Old Town’s Nick Perkins, who had a one-second time drop and a first place in the 200 individual medley earlier in the meet, went up against Palmer and Garver in the final leg.

“I knew MDI was quite a bit ahead of us and I saw Eric Palmer pull away,” said Perkins. “We had told Bangor earlier to go beat MDI so we could tie ’em in the final score. They did that. I just swam as hard as I could.”

Palmer also won the 200 free and 100 breaststroke. Loukes took the 50 free and the 100 free (season-best times). Martin Fitch was a winner in the 500 free.

Joe Rice, Kiel McDougall, Loukes and Chris Goldsmith of Bangor won 200 medley relay. McDougall, Fitch, Palmer and Loukes took the 200 free relay. Goldsmith, James Bair and Fitch swam before Palmer on the 400 relay.

Bangor’s Justin Alley held off defending PVC champ Chris Rodway of Brewer by 16.95 points to win the 1-meter diving competition (look for a rematch at next week’s Class A state championship meet).

Mike Sighinolfi led Brewer with a win in the 100 butterfly, the Witches first individual event win in a swimming event since Nick Rodway won the 100 back in 1999.

The Ellsworth boys, who have made huge strides as a team this year, picked up the school’s first-ever PVC event win when sophomore Matt Jordan took the 100 backstroke. His finish of 56.43 is a pool record.

The Rams had a couple of big finishes among the lower places. Freshman Josh Buck, who struggled a bit with his reverse dives this year, hit two Friday and was sixth overall. Sophomore Joe Rice had a fine time in the 100 fly and finished second. Freshman Graham Fitch’s 6:04.01 in the 500 free was good for seventh place and a time drop of almost six seconds from his seed time. He qualified for states and energized the Rams.

“Graham had been struggling with the 500 all year long. … It was just a matter of getting a different rhythm and he got into a different rhythm tonight,” Bangor coach Phil Emery said.

For the record, MDI went home with the runner-up plaque. Old Town will get its award later.