Belfast, Old Town girls battle to a rare tie

OLD TOWN – Belfast’s Camilla Roe is the kind of swimmer likes to keep an eye on her competition – literally.

Twice during Tuesday night’s meet against Old Town, the standout sophomore let the competition in lane 3 get ahead of her. Twice she came back to win.

Roe’s come-from-behind wins in the 200-yard freestyle and the 100 breaststroke helped the Lions gain a rare swimming tie with Old Town. Both teams scored 88 points in a meet at the high school pool here.

The Old Town boys, who are the defending Class B champions, rolled to an easy win over a young Lion squad. The Indians racked up 140 points to Belfast’s 43 behind the strong swimming of Nick Perkins, Nick Noonan, and Jacob Shanley.

In the girls meet, Roe let Old Town sophomore Maggie Bailey take a body-length-and-a-half lead before zooming ahead in the final leg and touching out Bailey by about three-tenths of a second.

Later in the meet, Roe was about even with Indian sophomore Mary Falls – it was too close to call at the final turn of the race – with about 10 yards to go when Roe popped her head out of the water, turned to look at Falls. She turned back to her own lane, put her head under water and beat Falls by less than half a second, too.

“I just love seeing my competition. It’s kind of like a goal that I just go for,” Roe said. “I turned over to see where she was and I was like, Oh, I’ve got to catch up. I like to build up and go pretty easy, then kick it.”

Bryna Harrington helped the Lions with wins in the 50 free and 100 free. Kat Berger was the only diver in the meet, so she earned the win in that event. The diving was held earlier in the afternoon at UMaine’s Wallace Pool.

“[Harrington] had an awesome 50 free,” Roe said. “She was fun to watch.”

Old Town was eager for a win after losing its last meet to John Bapst of Bangor.

“We had some initiative to come in here with guns blazing,” junior Barbara St. Peter said. “We come into every meet thinking we had to swim our best, but sometimes we just have bad nights.”

The Indians picked up their points from a variety of different sources.

Amanda Littlefield won the individual medley and qualified for states in the process. Regina Kenneway earned wins in the 100 butterfly and 500 free, Yanghee Kwon was first in the 100 backstroke.

Old Town racked up big points by winning the 200 medley relay and 200 and 400 free relays. Kwon and Bailey took part in all three relays, with Bailey the anchor in all three.

Falls finished second in the 50 free, and qualified for states in the breaststroke.

“We had some really good swims which outweighs who wins or loses,” Old Town coach Shannon Sawyer said.

In the boys meet, mid-distance specialist Perkins won the same two events which he took at last year’s Class B state meet.

Perkins was pleased with his 53.38 in the 100 free, but wasn’t as happy with his 1:59.18 in the 200 free. That may have been because he had anchored the medley relay, which comes just before the 200 free (even with the girls relay in the middle).

“The 200 was kind of [bad],” he said. “I was tired. I never do the medley. We just wanted to change it up, do something different.”

Like Roe, Perkins battled a competitor to eke out a win in the 200. In this case, however, the swimmer who tested Perkins was teammate Gerald Herlihy.

Noonan won the 100 back and the 100 fly while swimming on the winning 200 and 400 relays.

Shanley was another quadruple-event winner, as he took the 50 free, the 500 free and was a member of the medley relay and 200 free relay squads. The Indians were excited with his 5:21.56 in the 500.

Tyson O’Keefe won the diving, Robert Vayda took the 100 breaststroke and Dan Thorton was the winner in the IM. He also helped out on the medley relay and 200 free relay and collected a third in the 100 free.

“All around I’d say we had a fairly solid meet,” Perkins said. “Nothing too great, nothing too bad.”

The Lions, a traditional powerhouse who are down in experience a bit this year, got strong swims from David Delano (third in the 100 and 200 free events), Tyler Cox (third in the IM and the 500) and Evan Hutchins (second in the 50 free, fourth in the 100 free). John Cronin was third in the diving.

“It’s the little things,” said Belfast coach Bob Winslow, who is in his 31st year. “My freshmen are dropping time, and it’s coming. It’s slow. We came in here knowing we were going to get pounded, but we’re trying to meet certain individual goals.”