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BANGOR – Gabby Babin was just about perfect in Saturday’s Penobscot Valley Conference swimming and diving championships at the Husson College pool.
And for the seventh year in a row, so was the rest of the Bangor High team.
The Rams ran away with Saturday’s conference championships, powered by Babin’s four victories, for their seventh straight conference championship.
Bangor scored 419 points for the title, while MDI was the runner-up with 225 points.
Old Town scored 1471/2 to edge Brewer (147) for third. John Bapst of Bangor finished fifth with 1131/2 points.
The Rams won all three relays with Babin anchoring the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays. She swept the two sprint events, finishing first in the 50 and 100 free races. Bangor’s Cammi Howard also won two individual events, the 200 free and 100 butterfly.
The Rams started strong with a win in the 200 medley relay, followed by Howard’s win in the 200 free.
Bangor’s scoring in the 200 free was pretty typical of the meet. Howard won that race, Mara Shapero was second, Stephanie Palmer took third and Jackie Cobb was seventh.
MDI’s Iris Meehan took first in the next event, the 200 individual medley. Bangor, meanwhile, picked up a second place from Erica Simpson and also finished fourth, fifth and seventh.
Babin said it was easy to stay motivated in the meet.
“We have really good coaches and we’re all a close-knit team,” said Babin, who was second in both the 50 and 100 free races last year. “It’s pretty much all about the team.”
Freshman Sorrell Cardello had an outstanding PVC debut. She held off teammate Lily Herbold to win the 100 breaststroke, finished second in the fly and swam in the medley relay and 400 free relay.
“She had a really, really good meet,” Babin said.
Simpson also finished second in the 100 backstroke and Emma Chaiken was third in the diving.
Meehan and Julia Macauley powered the Trojans to their third runner-up title in a row. Macauley said MDI was eager to race the Class A Rams.
“This is like any other dual meet for us,” she said. “We’re really focusing on states. It’s good to see how we do against ‘A’ teams like Bangor. It’s really good competition.”
Macauley showed remarkable poise for a freshman, especially in the 500 free. She and Bangor’s Stephanie Palmer swam side-by-side for much of the race – they often touched just a few hundreths of a second apart until Macauley pulled away to win in 5:44.17.
Macauley was grateful for the competition Palmer gave her.
“[MDI coach Tony DeMuro] was telling me she was going to go faster than [her seed time], so I went out and raced her,” Macauley said. “We both got slower times, but I’m really glad I had a chance to have a race like that. I totally forgot about how I was pacing myself and I just went out there to race. That was the first time I’ve ever done that.”
The versatile Meehan was first in the 200 IM (Ellsworth’s Amy Dalrymple had a faster time but was disqualified for an incorrect backstroke turn) and third in the breaststroke. Meehan also anchored the second-place 200 and 400 free relays, while Brenna Crothers anchored the second-place medley relay.
“My girls swam awesome,” DeMuro said. “I’m very proud. I told the boys, if they swim half as good as the girls, we’d be all set.”
Old Town didn’t win an event, but third-place finishes in two of the three relays, plus a strong effort from Chloe McCleave, helped the Indians hold off Brewer by half a point.
McCleave was second in the 100 free and third in the 50 free. Maggie Bailey was fifth in the 200 and 500 free events.
Kallie Pottle and Celine Ding paced Brewer as the Witches collected two PVC crowns and two second-place finishes.
Pottle won the 100 backstroke in 1:02.95 and finished second to Babin in the 50 free. Ding helped Brewer clean up in the diving, where she and Devan Doucette went 1-2, respectively, as the Witches placed four divers in the top nine.
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