UMaine hosts 3 state track meets today

Six regional championships at far-flung sites around the state culled the field to the best high school track athletes in the state last week, and those fast … or fortunate … enough to have placed in the top six will gather in Orono today for the state’s premier high school event.

For the second year in a row, all three state championship meets will be held concurrently at the Beckett Family Track Complex at the University of Maine. State meets were regularly three-class affairs until the late 1970s, when Classes A, B, and C went their separate ways and staged individual events.

The meets begin at 10 a.m. and are scheduled to finish at around 7 p.m., although the afternoon track finals may be run ahead of schedule.

Last week, the Mount Ararat of Topsham (Class A), Belfast (B), and John Bapst of Bangor (C) boys earned Eastern Maine titles, as did the girls from Waterville, Hampden Academy, and John Bapst.

This week, the level of competition will be even higher, as Western Maine’s best head to Orono.

The Western Maine team titlists: the South Portland, York, and Falmouth boys and the Edward Little of Auburn, Greely of Cumberland Center, and Falmouth girls.

The meet’s juggernaut may be the Class B Greely girls, who piled up a whopping 194 points to win the Western Maine crown.

And the Rangers didn’t score their points by nickel-and-diming the competition. They did it with sheer front-line power.

Greely won 12 of 19 events, including every individual race between 100 and 1,600 meters. The Rangers scored a stunning 184 of their 194 points on just first- and second-place finishes.

Among last week’s record setters: Mt. Blue of Farmington senior Adam Staier, who set what is believed to be a national scholastic record in the 1,600 racewalk (6 minutes, 4.59 seconds), and Hermon senior Chantelle Haggerty, who pole vaulted 10 feet, 9 inches.

Ellsworth’s Steve DeWitt narrowly missed a record in the 1,600, and will take another shot at it today.

At first glance, an all-class state meet might sound like a confusing scenario. In actuality, it works out quite well for two logistical reasons.

First, the UMaine facility has a sufficient number of jumping pits and throwing areas to run events for different classes simultaneously.

And second, Maine’s state meets are an elite affair, and the old one-class competitions actually had to be delayed at times in order to give athletes a bit more rest between events.

Only the top 12 athletes in each event (per class) qualify for each state meet, so there is no need for trials, semifinals, and finals in sprint races; just a semifinal and a final suffice.

For track fans, that means one thing: Plenty of action, all day long.

The same standardized meet schedule will be followed on the track, though the morning session will include only two finals: the boys and girls 1,600-meter racewalks and the boys and girls 3,200-meter relays.

Field event finals will begin at 10 a.m., with two long jump competitions, two high jumps, two pole vaults, and a triple jump all starting at the same time at the spacious facility.

Throwers will begin their finals en masse at 11 a.m., as two competitions in each discipline will get under way.