This year, for the first time, the Presque Isle and Caribou high schools swim teams will both be sending a relay team to compete in the Class B girls state championship swim meet.

The teams are small, but fielding a relay means a squad is a strong enough program to put four solid swimmers in the pool.

It’s been a process of several years for the two teams. The Presque Isle squad had been swimming with the Caribou kids until the program broke off this year with its own coach, Kierston Donovan.

“We’ve had girls for probably six years,” said Caribou coach Richard Tateishi. “Now we’re up to 14 kids from Caribou and we also have Limestone/Maine School of Science and Mathematics with us.”

Presque Isle has six swimmers on its team.

The Caribou team is sort of a family affair for the Tateishis. In addition to father Richard, his daughter Erin Tateishi – who swam for the Vikes last year and is attending UM-Presque Isle – is an assistant coach. And Katie Tateishi is one of the team’s top swimmers. The sophomore has qualified for two individual events, the 200-yard individual medley and the 100 freestyle.

Katie Tateishi, who also serves as a captain, was ninth in both the 200 IM and 100 free at PVCs.

“Katie really helped to get the team going in the past couple of years,” Richard Tateishi said. “She’s got a lot of her friends and a lot of other people from Caribou interested in swimming.”

Caribou has enough swimmers to enter all three relays (200 medley, 200 free and 400 free) at the state meet. The Viking relay swimmers will likely include Tateishi, freshmen Marisa Hessert and Simone Willett, sophomores Sarah Michaud, Courtney Francis, junior Molly Bell, and seniors Elsa Collins, Kelsey Albair and Haley Jepson.

There is no qualification time for relays, unlike the individual events, so each school can enter a relay team.

Presque Isle is sending four girls to the state meet, including junior Heather Griffin, who has qualified in the 200 and 500 free events. She will swim on a relay with freshman Jessica Currier and juniors Jessica Price and Rachel Paleafi. Those four girls can swim the 200 medley relay and the 200 free relay.

Griffin was third in the 200 free and sixth in the 500 free at PVCs.

Both teams have been going through similar obstacles this year. The closest team to Caribou and PI is Old Town, a three-hour drive south. And neither squad has a completely suitable pool.

The Limestone High pool isn’t set up for racing, Richard Tateishi said, while the pool at the Northern Maine Forum in Presque Isle, where the Wildcats swim, doesn’t have backstroke flags or timing equipment. It also only has two starting blocks.

Good news may be on the way – UMPI may get a new indoor pool and sports complex in the next few years, which would open things up for the entire county.

Nokomis’ Welch out with injury

Nokomis of Newport guard Lindsey Welch has suffered a stress fracture in her foot and will likely be out for the next 2-3 weeks.

Nokomis athletic director Carl Parker said the 5-foot-3 junior injured her right foot in a recent game and the team expects her back in time for the Class A tournament, which starts March 1.

Welch last played Jan. 29 against Ellsworth, a game in which she hit three 3-pointers and finished with 11 points. She has missed games against Bangor, Old Town and Brewer.

Welch is one of four starters back from last year’s state championship team and was an honorable mention on the NEWS Eastern Maine Class A all-tourney team.

Noonan relieved after heart scare

Perhaps the most comforting sight of the boys’ Penobscot Valley Conference swimming championship Friday was watching Old Town sophomore Nick Noonan swim for the Indians.

Noonan was on quite an emotional roller coaster for the past two weeks. Noonan, who had collapsed during last fall’s Eastern Maine cross country championship, has been having trouble with his stamina all season and went to see a doctor two weeks ago.

“I wouldn’t be able to do [the swim workout],” Noonan said. “I would come up against that same wall [as in the cross country race]. I would have the shortness of breath, I’d feel dizzy and very tired. Very, very tired. I wouldn’t be able to finish sets, which was very unlike me.”

The doctor performed an echocardiogram, a technique which examines the heart, and determined that Noonan might have a serious heart problem.

The doctor dropped a bomb: absolutely no strenuous activity, including swimming, and definitely including swimming in PVCs.

But last Wednesday, when Noonan returned to the doctor for another examination, he got much better news: false alarm.

Noonan swam on two Old Town relay teams and scored in two individual events, the 200-yard freestyle and the 100 butterfly, at the conference meet.

“It’s been pretty crazy,” Noonan said after seeing his doctor last week. “The doctor saw something bad originally and she wanted to make sure so she looked at it again. … I’m excited to be swimming but I’m pretty out of shape.”

The Old Town team was, of course, concerned primarily for Noonan’s health. But without him the Indians would have had to reshuffle their relays, two of which are currently ranked among the top six in the state.

NFHS announces soccer changes

Additional signals for fouls and a revision in the shinguard rule were among the changes approved by the National Federation of State High School Associations’ Soccer Rules Committee at its February meeting in Indianapolis.

The rules changes will go into effect for the 2002 soccer season.

The major change was the addition of signals for fouls to the Official Soccer Signals chart in the soccer rules book. The signals added include holding, kicking, obstruction, pushing and tripping.

The rationale for these additions is to better communicate with teams, coaches, sideline officials and spectators (Have you ever sat at a soccer game, heard a whistle and wondered what the referee’s call was?).

The NFHS approved additional points to the shinguard rule to emphasize that shinguards provide adequate protection and be age-appropriate. Some players were wearing shinguards on the side rather than the front of the lower leg; others were wearing shinguards too small for them.

Jessica Bloch’s High School Report is published each Tuesday. She can be reached at 990-8193 or jbloch@bangordailynews.net