DURHAM, N.H. – Thanks to a solid, team scoring performance and a dramatic finish in the 4-by-400-meter relay race, the University of Maine women’s track and field team returned to Orono Sunday with the program’s first-ever New England Outdoor Championship.

The Maine men finished sixth as meet champ Rhode Island scored 127 points to Maine’s 36.

Heading into the final event on Saturday, the Black Bear women’s team led the New Hampshire Wildcats by 4.5 points – 76.5 to 72. Maine was seeded 12th and UNH sixth in the event. If UNH finished fourth or better and Maine finished ninth or worse, the Wildcats would win.

Maine’s Mandy Virgets ran the lead leg before handing off to Ashland’s Sarah Dwyer and Dwyer passed the baton to fellow sophomore Silvia Scaldaferri. The Vancouver, British Columbia native ran a personal-best time of 57.1 seconds, but Maine was still far behind the Wildcats when she handed off to anchor runner Viktoriya Rybalko, who had never run the 400 before.

Rybalko, who earlier had won her second straight New England long jump title with a meet record jump of 20 feet, 103/4 inches, blasted around the track in 55.9 seconds to lead Maine to a seventh-place finish, two more meet points, and a slim 1.5-point victory over the Wildcats. UNH’s relay team gained five points with a fourth-place finish.

One week after finishing third in their own conference (America East) meet, the Maine women saw 11 of their 20 meet qualifiers score points in individual events and all three of their relay teams score as well to finish at the top of a 33-team heap in the two-day meet.

Leading the Bears were Rybalko; Claire Poliquin, who won the high jump with a height of 5-5; Amelia Williams, who was third in the javelin; Scaldaferri, who was fourth in the long jump; Alfred’s Suzanne Hussey, fourth in the 5,000; Sadie Shaffer, fourth in triple jump, Vassalboro’s Katie Souviney, fourth in the heptathlon; Palmyra’s Katie Page, fifth in discus; and Lisbon’s Stephanie McCusker, fifth in triple jump.

The 4×800 team of Kristen Vidlak, Brunswick’s Janeen Shepard, Virgets and Brewer’s Heather Jovanelli was first with a school-record time of 9:13.74 and the 4×100 team of Rybalko, McCusker, Shaffer and Dwyer were fourth with a time of 49.06.

Nicole Pelletier of Presque Isle was sixth in the 3000 steeplechase and Vidlak finished seventh in the 800.

In the men’s meet, senior Ryan Harkleroad was Maine’s top finisher with a second in the 800. Harkleroad lost to Boston College’s Vernon Mickle by .05 seconds. Brunswick’s Ken Bettis was fourth in the 800 and Lovell’s Mike Lansing was fourth in the steeplechase. Scott Godsoe of Old Town was fifth in the long jump. The 4×800 relay team of Andy Caron, Bettis, Harkleroad and Paul Rupprecht finished first with a time of 7:43.73.

Bates College’s Justin Eastler, a Farmington native, won the 3,000 steeplechase with a time of nine minutes, 4.41 seconds.