Belfast boys roll, Hampden girls eke out win

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WINSLOW – For the Belfast boys, Saturday’s Eastern Maine Class B championship track and field meet was an opportunity to extend a streak of dominance. For the Hampden Academy girls, it was a chance to return to dominance.

Both teams accomplished their goals as the Belfast Lions won their fifth straight regional title while Hampden avenged a loss to Winslow by beating the Black Raiders on their home turf and notching their second regional crown in the last three years.

It wasn’t as though neither team had to deal with obstacles either. For Belfast, it was weather as rain cancelled the conference championship meet and forced the Lions to go two weeks without a meet. For Hampden, it was the school’s senior prom.

“Not to make excuses or anything, but we had our prom last night and I think we’re all suffering some fatigue today,” said Hampden distance specialist Oriana Farley. “I think being up all night on our feet dancing and everything, this is just a survival day.”

Well, the Broncos survived quite nicely, thank you, despite having a couple of highly seeded girls either fall short of their seedings or fail to place at all. Team Sleep Deprivation scored 103 points to hold off co-runners-up Winslow (85) and Caribou (85).

“We were seeded to beat Caribou by a dozen or so, so I’m impressed,” said Broncs coach David King, who added he was expecting the post-prom worst. “Our young girls really stepped up.”

“I got about five hours of sleep, but I don’t know if some other girls got any sleep,” said senior captain Jani Bosse. “We had a couple girls who didn’t get the points they were supposed to, but we have depth we didn’t have last year and that helps.”

Perhaps the Broncos saving grace was in the field events, where they totaled 54 points.

“It was great to run in nice weather. Warming up was really easy and it was great to be able to run with great conditions, but it was kind of weird because we’re so used to competing in bad weather,” Bosse said.

Senior Sarah Parsons accounted for 16 of those with a first in the discus and a third in shot put.

“Last year I was out because I had broken my elbow and I had my gallbladder taken out, so I really wanted to come back and have a great season,” Parsons said.

Farley paced Hampden with another 18 after winning the 800-meter run and finishing second in the 1,600. She also anchored Hampden’s winning 1,600-meter relay team. Sarah Peters won the high jump and was fifth in the long and triple jumps for 14 points.

Individual standouts included Winslow senior Katie Souviney, who defended her titles in the javelin, 100 hurdles, and 200. Mount View’s Caitlin Biggs edged Souviney in the 300 hurdles by .37 seconds to become the first person to beat Souviney this season.

“She ran an awesome race. That was her personal best by a couple seconds so congratulations to her,” said the UMaine-bound Souviney, who said she didn’t feel smooth going over the hurdles.

Hermon’s Chantelle Haggerty made an already memorable day even better with the only record-breaking performance of the meet.

Shortly after winning the 400, Haggerty smashed the regional and state record in the pole vault (10 feet, one inch in Class B, 10-3 overall) with a height of 10-9.

“I don’t know what it was. When I started, I took my run-through and I was tired because I’d done the 400, so I didn’t think I’d have any energy to jump. I did a lot better than I thought,” said Haggerty, who stuck around long enough to collect her ribbons before hurrying home to attend her senior prom.

In the boys meet, the Lions used a different formula to come up with the same winning result. The Lions’ squad is much smaller than the ones that began their current title streak, but they covered their quantity deficiency with quality.

“This is by far the smallest team we’ve had since I’ve been here,” said senior captain Colby Horne, who won the 200 and 400 and ran the third leg of Belfast’s first-place 400-meter relay team. “We only have like 40 people, boys and girls. When I was a sophomore, we had 40 guys and 40 girls. The numbers have dropped dramatically, but the core of talent has stuck around.”

Belfast’s small squad scored big points as the Lions easily outdistanced runner-up Ellsworth 152 to 89.

“We expected a big dogfight, but we didn’t expect to score as many points as we did,” said coach Dale Nealey. “The sprinters did what they were expected to do, but we got some big points from our distance runners and field events people too.”

Senior captain Reid Woodbury won three events (javelin, discus, shot put) to lead the Lions.

“There was definitely pressure on us, but all we can do is do our best and try to keep this run of ours going,” said Woodbury.

Steve Matluk led Belfast’s sweep of the top three places in the 100 and the Lions also won the 1,600 relay as anchor leg runner Colby Horne surged from behind to beat Winslow down the stretch.

“We don’t have a lot of kids, but what we have for talent here is the cream of the crop,” said Jeff Parenteau, who ran the lead leg of the 400 relay and was second in the 100 “We all like what we’re doing and we do well at it.”

Individually, Woodbury and Ellsworth’s Adam MacBeth were the lone triple champions.

MacBeth won the long jump, 100 hurdles, and 300 hurdles for the second straight year.

If not for a recent rash of injuries which knocked out one top runner and limited distance specialist Steve DeWitt to one event, the Eagles might have mounted an even stiffer challenge to Belfast.

Despite an injury to his right plica tendon, Dewitt still managed to win the 1,600 and finish just .18 seconds off the record time of four minutes, 17.49 seconds.

“I was trying to decide whether to run 50 percent and just qualify for states or go for it,” Dewitt said. “I decided to go for it to take advantage of the conditions today. I felt pretty good, but I didn’t realize how close I was to the record.”