ORONO – For several years, Joey Rice was stuck.

Now a Bangor High senior swimmer, Rice just couldn’t break the one-minute barrier in the 100-yard butterfly over the years. Then, at last year’s state championship meet, he pulled off a time of 59.26 seconds.

The Bangor High senior had another breakthrough in Saturday’s Class A state championship meet.

Seeded 14th going into the morning’s preliminary heats, Rice posted a 57.34, jumping all the way up to a second seed for the evening’s championship final and for a few minutes becoming all the talk at the University of Maine’s Wallace Pool.

Several other Bangor swimmers finished with good swims, but it wasn’t enough to put the 2003 runner-up into the top five teams.

Deering of Portland successfully defending its state title, holding off cross-town rival Cheverus. The Deering Rams scored 2111/2 points to 1801/2 for the Stags.

Morse of Bath scored 156 points to edge Scarborough (153) for third. Cape Elizabeth was fifth (126). Bangor scored 114 points to finish sixth.

Rice’s previous best in the fly this season was a 1:02.11, which wouldn’t have put him in the top 12 to score. It was clear he was pleased with his prelim time – after he touched the timing pad and looked up at the scoreboard Rice clapped his hands and his Bangor teammates let out a roar for him.

“We’ve been training real hard all season and it just clicked at the right time,” he said with a smile after the meet. “I dropped like four seconds. It was just incredible. … On the blocks I was really nervous, but when I dove in I had a really good breakout.”

Rice attributed the time drop to lots of work, especially in practice over the last week as the team went through its pre-states resting period.

“I was just doing a lot more butterfly in the practices and I swam it a whole lot more this year in meets,” he said. “During our taper, I swam it at least once a day. We just do it as fast as we can.”

He came back that night and posted a time of 58.46 (many swimmers go faster in the morning heats to assure themselves of a place in the championship final), good enough for third place and his highest finish in a high school state championship meet.

Rice also scored in the 100 backstroke, finishing seventh overall with a time of 59.67 seconds, under a minute for the second time in two years. He went into the meet seeded 10th in that event.

John Quinn was the only Ram to swim in two championship finals for individual events. He was fifth in the 50 free and sixth in the 100 free.

Mike Rubin came in sixth in the 500 free and seventh in the 200 free. Rubin, Quinn, Rice, and Shane White were all on the 400 free relay and 200 medley relay teams, finishing fourth and fifth, respectively.

“Where we finished doesn’t really matter to us,” Rice said. “We just wanted to know that we did the best we could.”

Josh Buck was third in the diving, which was won by Morse’s Keaton Scarponi.

Cheverus led through the first five events until the Stags and Deering were tied at 981/2 points apiece after the fly. Deering took command after the 100 free on the strength of Chris Mosley’s first-place finish and key consolation swim by Owen Hughes. He was seeded ninth but finished eighth.

“We know that the second half of our meet is really the turning point,” Deering coach Rick Horr said. “If we’re ever close to anybody, we know chances are we can pull it off at the end. … The guys never gave up.”

Arik Seiler led Deering with wins in the 200 free and 500 free and was named the Swimmer of the Meet. He also swam on the Rams’ second-place medley relay and first-place 400 free relay.

Cheverus, the sportsmanship award winner, won the medley relay. Brian Agro took the breaststroke and Chris Ward was first in the 50 free.

Scarborough had a slim edge in the battle for third most of the evening, but Spencer Hallowell’s win in the 100 backstroke boosted the Shipbuilders. Hallowell was first in the back and Luke Trafton won the 200 individual medley.

Jake Cardello, a Hampden freshman who swims with Brewer, was ninth in the 200 free and 10th in the 100 free. The Witches didn’t have anyone in the finals but stayed to cheer on Cardello and the rest of the swimmers.