A year ago, Hampden Academy cross country and track standout Oriana Farley was a fixture at or near the top of the official results listings in every race she ran.

The 2002 fall season hasn’t been a repeat performance for the Bronco senior, who finished 12th at the Class B state championship cross country meet Saturday.

The week before, Farley had one of her best races in the bitter cold and steady rain at the Eastern Maine meet in Belfast as she finished fourth, but then collapsed after crossing the finish line as she struggled to catch her breath.

It has been a common ending to races for the HA standout this season, starting with the Ellsworth Invitational, her first race of the year.

“I’ve been having a real hard time with my respiratory system lately and they’re not really sure what it is,” Farley said. “I took a couple meets off because it was getting to the point where it was like I was running into the wall every race. It’s really frustrating because this past summer and preseason, I probably did more training than I ever have.”

Farley said she had some problems with her breathing “once in awhile” last year if weather conditions weren’t ideal, but she said this season, the condition has worsened.

“It’s gotten really, really difficult and I’m trying now just to cope and run with it,” said Farley, the disappointment evident in her voice. “I’m just trying to overcome it and work with it to do anything I possibly can because I love running so much, it’s really hard not to do it.”

Last year, Farley won the Class B state race in 19 minutes, 45 seconds and qualified to run in New Englands for a second straight year. This year, her time was 20:49 and she was two places out of the last qualification spot.

“It’s really, really frustrating to run a minute slower than you ran last year and physically feel like you’re in better shape,” she said.

With her physical limitations affecting her performance, her teammates had to pick up the slack – something they did progressively better as the season went on.

Last week, Farley and junior Molly Balentine led the Broncos to their third straight Eastern B regional team title.

“Molly has really stepped up to the plate. There’s a lot of meets I missed and she’s stepped into the leadership role as a frontrunner on the team and done well,” said Farley, who stopped to collect herself in mid sentence as tears ran down her cheeks. “She’ll go by me or come up behind me and say ‘hang tough because I know you’re hurting’ and it’s good to get that from them. They’ve been with me all season and … I’m getting emotional. Sorry.”

Farley is seeing a respiratory specialist to get a diagnosis.

“They think it’s something called vocal chord disorder where your chords close and I can’t get air in, start hyperventilating, and it all goes downhill from there,” she said.

Farley hopes to be in better shape for indoor track season.

“I’d really just like to be able to run when I know I can, because I can go out for a really hard training run and be OK, but then it’s that next level, that racing pace, that makes it kick in halfway through a race,” said Farley. “It’s tough.”

Shedding some light on Doyle

When Brewer Parks and Recreation workers turned on the lights at Doyle Field for Brewer High School’s regular season football finale against Winslow last Friday, something was amiss.

“They were all working last Thursday for a frosh game with Bangor,” said Brewer Parks and Recreation Director Ken Hanscom. “Then Friday night, we turned them on and 12 of them were out.

“We still had enough light for the field because if anything, it can be overly bright.”

The game went off without a hitch, unless you were a Brewer fan as Brewer lost 36-12.

“We just don’t know if it was a surge that blew some or if they just happened to go all at once,” said Hanscom, who said the typical bulbs last six to seven years despite regular use.

Tuesday, Brewer firefighters came by with their aerial ladder truck and replaced the burned out lights on two of the three poles affected in three hours. They have six more bulbs to replace before Friday night’s playoff game against Leavitt of Turner.

“Those guys [firefighters] are top-notch to help us with that,” Hanscom said. “They get my sincere thanks.”

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600, or aneff@bangordailynews.net