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Yet another indoor track season is coming to a close, and a championship season is here.
Athletes from four conferences will gather at four different venues this weekend for conference bragging rights.
Saturday, the Eastern Maine Indoor Track League championship will take place at the University of Maine field house in Orono, starting at 2:45 p.m. with field events and running events at 3:15.
The defending champion Bangor girls will be vying for their third EM crown in the last four years while the Hampden Academy boys will try to win their second in three seasons.
In the girls’ meet, the Rams will face some tough competition from Old Town and cross-town rival John Bapst. Bangor’s multi-talented star, junior Jolene Belanger, could very well capture the meet’s top performance award, as she is near or at the top in the 800-meter run as well as the long and triple jumps. She’ll have competition from Evelyn Sharkey of Bapst in the 800 and Old Town’s Kendra Gould in the jumps.
Sharkey is seeded second in the mile, one second behind Old Town star Cassie Hintz, and that may be the race to watch. Hintz will also run the 2-mile, and will look to better the league record of 10 minutes, 40.94 seconds she set on Jan. 22
The boys’ competition looks to be pretty tight on paper with the Rams, Broncos and Indians all in contention for the championship.
Hampden Academy has a tough 1-2 punch in the 60 and 200 in Trainor Kapler and Jeremy Tyler. Kapler is favored to win both of those races and should place high in the triple jump, which should be a good three-way competition along with fellow Bronco Ben Toothaker and OT’s Tim Niles.
Old Town senior shot putter Tyler Eastman, who set the EMITL record for the fourth time this season with a heave of 55 feet, 21/2 inches last week, will hope to keep the momentum going onto the state championships, where he looks to break the state Class B mark.
The races to watch may very well be the distance duels between Bangor sophomore Casey Quaglia and Brewer junior Brendan Carr. Carr is second in the mile to Quaglia and is first in the 800 and 2-mile. Carr’s best event may be the 2-mile, as he’ll be looking to go under 10 minutes and attempt to notch a top-three seed for the state championships.
Quaglia is dangerous in the shorter races such as the mile and 800 with his thunderous finishing speed. The Rams will need him to score big points to have a shot at the team title.
The top five seeds in the 800, from Quaglia down to Micah Mishio of Orono, are only separated by four seconds and the top six by just five.
Jumps will also be the key for Bangor, particularly the long jump, where Nick Buchanan, Brian Johnson and Matt Borok are seeded 1-2-4, and the high jump, where Buchanan is the top seed at 6 feet, 4 inches. The EMITL record is 6-71/4, set in 1988 by Rob Pendergist of Ellsworth.
Elsewhere, the KVAC meet will be held tonight at Bowdoin College’s Farley Field House in Brunswick, along with the Western Maine Conference meet at the University of Southern Maine in Gorham.
The teams in the Southern Maine Activities Association will gather Saturday at the Portland Expo.
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