Old Town girls, Bangor boys win Hampden boys, girls answer questions with convincing sweep

ORONO – While Bangor’s boys were using a traditional method to steamroll the competition at Saturday’s Penobscot Valley Conference-Eastern Maine Indoor Track League meet, Old Town’s girls – and the Hampden Academy boys and girls – were finding ways to fill some big gaps and gain some early season momentum.

Hampden Academy engineered a sweep of one of Saturday’s meets as the boys won in impressive fashion, 134 points to runner-up Mount Desert Island’s 93, and the girls edged the Trojans 82 to 80.

In the other meet, the depth-blessed Bangor boys cruised through the meet with 123 points to runner-up Old Town’s 84. The girls meet was a reversal as the Old Town girls literally took a major jump forward at the University of Maine field house.

The young Indians were able to grab a significant portion of points in the jumping events (high, triple and long) to pull away from Bangor and notch a 111-97 victory over the Rams – their first in at least a decade.

“To come close would have been good, but to beat them by 14 points is even better. I’m pretty excited,” said Indians coach Rod White. “I don’t think we’ve beaten Bangor’s girls since the early 1990s.”

Old Town scored 24 points in the three jumping events as freshman Kendra Gould led the way with a first in the long jump and a second in the triple for 14 points.

Other key Old Town performers were freshman Cassie Hintz, who won the mile and two-mile runs; Sharon Fuller, who won the 60-yard hurdles and the 800-meter run; Alivia Moore, who won the 60 dash; and Kristen Paul, who took the shot put. Old Town also won the 880-yard relay.

“Even though we were missing some girls, we had a great meet. We had some new girls with two freshmen in the triple jump who scored 10 points,” White said. “We had four or five other girls besides Cassie who were kind of unknowns who I thought had potential and today they rose to the occasion and did well.”

Both Bangor and Old Town were missing some team members who were away on family vacations, and although Bangor was missing more potential point scorers, White said the meet still figured to be a close one with both teams at full strength.

“I’m pretty psyched. Any time you beat Bangor, whether they’re at full strength or not, the kids will be excited,” he said. “It’s a good motivational thing.”

The Bangor boys were missing four athletes as well, but it didn’t show as Brian Worster won both the 60 hurdles and the pole vault, Matt Forshee took the mile and two-mile; and Dan Carson won the high jump.

“We were satisfied with how we did. We have a lot of freshman boys and a lot of juniors and seniors without much track experience and this was good for them developmentally,” Bangor coach Maynard Walton said of both his teams. “I really wanted to see what we could do in the triple jump and Amanda [Mooers], who had never done it before, went over 31 feet. That’s very good. Also in the high jump, Amanda cleared five feet after not competing last week with an ankle injury.”

Another plus was freshman Jolene Belanger, who won both the 200 and 400.

Old Town’s John Garrity opened some eyes as he beat Bucksport sprinter standout Gunner Siverly a second straight time in the 60.

“I knew coming into this that he was the one to beat, so this gives me a lot of confidence,” said the junior. “I’m very happy how this is working out.”

Garrity, who has played basketball the last two winters, opted to give track a shot this time around.

“I wanted to do what I was better at and people told me I could do real good in winter track,” Garrity said.

In the other meet, Hampden came in with a lot of questions and left with several answers and exclamation points.

“We’ve got a few holes and tonight we found some ways to plug a few of them, the jumping events in particular,” said HA coach David King. “What I needed for girls mostly was high jumpers and we found a couple. What I needed for boys was long and triple jumpers. We found long jumpers tonight and we have a couple that may work for the triple, too.”

Senior McKenzie Rawcliffe is working out quite well again in the jumping events. A distance runner in the fall, Rawcliffe shifts into sprinter/jumper mode in the winter. Saturday, she was the lone triple winner in either meet as she won the 60 hurdles, long jump, and triple jump.

“I’m doing a lot better than I thought I would. Like in the long jump, I did two inches less than my best, which was sophomore year,” said the energetic Rawcliffe, who can usually be seen grooving to tunes or dancing as she listens to music between events. “I did do more weightlifting and actually worked out in the offseason, which I don’t normally do.”

With Oriana Farley away at the Brown Invitational and Molly Balentine recovering from a flu bug, Shelly Estes stepped up to lead the Broncos’ deep distance corps by winning the mile and 800-meter run.

“I figured I’d probably be about where I am, but I’m hoping to get better,” Estes said.

The Hampden boys spread out their first-place finishes among seven different athletes, but Eric Libby led the way with firsts in the 60 and 400.

Individually, MDI senior Brendon Westphal had a great day as he won the mile and 800, both of which ended in close duels with Hampden’s Brian Herasymchuk.

“They were both great races,” Westphal said. “I was really happy with my mile time. My PR was from last week with a 4:45 and I did better than six seconds than that today, which is really exciting for me.”