BANGOR – The Mount Desert Island boys swimming and diving team took a huge step toward defending its 2004 Class B state title with a win in Saturday’s Penobscot Valley Conference championship meet at Husson College.

The Trojans’ second title in a row didn’t come easily as they got a push from Class A Bangor, but MDI rolled in the second half of the meet to score 290 points for the victory.

The Rams wound up with 245 points for second place, one spot better than last year’s third.

Old Town came in third with 174 points, followed by John Bapst of Bangor with 135 and Ellsworth with 104.

The Rams had a one-point lead after the diving as Bangor’s Josh Buck scored 351 points with two other Ram divers scoring in the six-person field. The two teams battled back and forth for a while – MDI regained the advantage after Justin Gilmartin and Jeremy Cline finished 4-5 in the 100-yard butterfly, then Bangor’s John Quinn edged Hampden’s Josh Ranger in the 100 freestyle and two other Rams scored in the top 12 – but the Trojans climbed back into the lead after that.

Old Town’s Erlend Rismyhr won the 500 free, but MDI’s Kevin Staples countered with a second and MDI also went 4-6-12 in that event to solidify its lead. The Trojans won the next two events, the 200 free relay with Staples anchoring and the 100 backstroke with Frank Carbone. MDI was also second in the 400 free relay.

“We expected Bangor to be right there with us,” Staples said. “They’ve got tons of people. I think that’s why they were ahead of us after the fly.”

Staples had a tall order in the 200 individual medley – find a way to beat Orono’s Mo Nazmy.

Nazmy, the reigning Class B state breaststroke champion, had the top seed in the IM and led through the breaststroke, which is the third leg of the race. But Staples blazed ahead in the freestyle for the win.

“He’s a great competitor,” Staples said of Nazmy. “He scared me, I’ll be honest. I thought he had me in the breaststroke. I was a little bit surprised that I caught him.”

The senior trio of Quinn, Mike Rubin and Buck gave Bangor three first-place finishes Saturday. Quinn won the 50 and 100 freestyles (Ranger was also second in the 50 free), the only swimmer to win two individual events.

Rubin gave the Rams a huge spark when he came from behind to win the 200 free and also finished third in the 100 fly. And Buck easily won the diving.

“We had a great meet. We had ’em halfway through, but we’re just not deep enough,” Rubin said. “We’ve been working hard in practice and it showed a lot today. … I was very happy with my times. I dropped like two seconds in my 200 free.”

Old Town racked up most of its points thanks to Rismyhr and Jacob Shanley.

Rismyhr won the 500 free in a time of 5 minutes, 12.92 seconds, outdueling Staples and Ellsworth’s Zach Cravens, who had an early lead and wound up third. Rismyhr also finished second to Rubin in the 200 free.

Shanley was having a fine meet until he ran into some bad luck – a false start and automatic disqualification in the 200 free relay. Things nearly got worse in the breaststroke when his goggles broke as he was getting ready for the start.

But Bangor’s Rubin tossed Shanley his goggles, and the Old Town junior ended up with a win.

“That was really nice of him. I couldn’t believe it. And they fit perfectly,” said Shanley, who beat Nazmy in the breaststroke and was second in the 100 fly.

“I was happy to do it,” Rubin said. “I wanted it to be a good race.”

Old Town also won the 400 free relay, and Matt Jones was second in the diving.

“We had some really good swims today,” Shanley added.

Will Bruton made history for Presque Isle. The Wildcats had never won a PVC race until his 58.05 finish in the 100 fly, but Bruton was just happy with his time, which was a personal best.

PI coach Joyce Price said the ‘Cats had second- and third-place finishes on the girls side in the past, but never a first.

“I try to stay away from the pride things,” said Brunton, who attended John Bapst last year. “I know a lot of what I do is the coach’s work anyway.”

John Bapst’s Tyler Isherwood was third in the IM and second in the backstroke.