Maxim shines as Old Town girls knock off Rams

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ORONO – Little did Hilary Maxim know it at the time, but her small margin of victory in the 800-meter run – one hundredth of a second – would have a big impact on the outcome of one of Saturday’s multi-team Eastern Maine Indoor Track League meets at the University of Maine field house.

The Old Town High sophomore’s win in the 800 over Bangor senior Jolene Belanger was pivotal, as Old Town handed the Rams their first loss in EMITL competition since the 2003 championship meet, 135-131. Mount Desert Island and Brewer finished third and fourth with 66 and 59 points, respectively, while Mattanawcook of Lincoln’s 37 was good enough for fifth to highlight the seven-team field in Meet “A”.

The Bangor boys made a statement that they will be the team to beat in Feb. 11’s EM championship. The Rams outdistanced second-place Old Town 174.5-73.5. Brewer was third with 58, followed by MDI’s 55, Sumner of East Sullivan’s 32, George Stevens Academy of Blue Hill’s 20 and MA’s 17.

Meet “B” was won by the John Bapst of Bangor girls and Orono boys.

In the girls Meet “A,” the most exciting race of the day featured Maxim and Belanger in the 800. Despite coming off two tough runs in the 4×800 and the mile run, which she won in 5 minutes, 25.51 seconds, Maxim used a late surge in the final 75 yards to catch Belanger and executed a perfect lean at the finish line, winning in 2:23.97 seconds to Belanger’s 2:23.98.

“I was just like, hey she’s [Belanger] right there, I can get her if I go now, and I went and I got her,” Maxim said with a wide grin on her face.

“She’s doing real well. She’s a tough kid, too, OT coach Rod White said of his distance runner, who’s shooting up the EMITL performance lists every week. “She’s just done really well, she works hard in practice. I was really happy when she decided to do indoor track.”

Senior jumper Kendra Gould said Old Town is dedicating its efforts this season to former teammate Lindsey Alemenas, who was killed in a car accident last fall.”We wish Lindsey could be here,” Gould said. “She was an important part of the team and we really miss her.”

The Old Town athletes are honoring Alemenas’ memory by wearing T-shirts with her picture on the back with “In memory of our friend” as the caption.

Gould was one of many Old Town athletes who improved on working toward championship success. She took second in the long and triple jumps with leaps of 16 feet, 43/4 inches and 33-111/2, respectively.

“I was a half-inch off of 34 feet today, and a half-inch off my personal best in long jump so I’m pretty excited,” she said.

The Rams were missing two of their key athletes, sprinter Kelly Kraph and shot putter Kelly White. Coach Maynard Walton said Kraph has a slight groin pull and White was sick.

He also said his girls team got a wakeup call it needed.

“Old Town showed us what we needed to do. We’ve got less then two weeks [until Easterns],” Walton said. “This is a good wakeup call for us. We really needed this.”

White, however, knows that to be the champs, you’ve got to beat the champs.

“Bangor is a very good team. They’ll show up at Easterns,” he said. “This is a regular-season meet. The big one is three weeks from now.”

Belanger won both the long and triple jumps with marks of 16-61/2 and 34-21/2 for the Rams. For Old Town, Eliza Tibbits took the 2-mile (12:17.91), Heather Jackson won the pole vault (8-6) and Anja Jahnkow captured the high jump (4-6).

In the boys meet, the Rams got two wins each from distance runner Casey Quaglia and sprinter Cam Cormier, and their depth prevailed throughout most of the meet.

Quaglia, who won the mile and 800, was slated to run the 2-mile as well but scratched from that event after suffering a small bone bruise on his foot.

Cormier showed that he could very well be the top sprinter in Eastern Maine and one of the best in the state in Class A. He breezed to a win in the 60 dash in 6.88 seconds and cruised to another victory in the 200 in 23.36.

Cormier said he was satisfied with his times, but that there is always room for improvement.

“I know that I’m definitely gonna keep working at it, and hopefully get them (60 and 200 times) at least a couple tenths below where they are now,” he said.

“It feels pretty good [to win], I keep having a little lapse where I get worse times [than I expect], but I’ve just gotta keep improving,” he added.

The Rams dominated the track for the most part, taking every individual event with the exception of the 2-mile and hurdles. Brewer’s Brendan Carr captured the 2-mile in 10:26.08 and MA’s Casey Hartley won the hurdles in 8.48 seconds.

Two great individual battles took place in the high jump and pole vault. In the pole vault, Bangor’s James Rogers and Jeremy Curran of MDI went at it in a “jump-off” for nearly half an hour before settling for a tie. Both vaulters cleared 12 feet.

In the high jump, Sam Petrie of Old Town and David Thomas from Sumner went toe-to-toe. After Petrie cleared 6-2 on his second attempt at that height, Thomas soared over the bar on his final attempt. Both jumpers missed on three tries at 6-4, with Thomas’ final jump being the closest. The back of his jersey nicked the bar and it tumbled to the ground.

In Meet B, Thomas Hornsby won both the mile and 2-mile runs to pace the Orono Red Riots to victory, with times of 4:57.26 and 10:57.77, respectively. Jeff Normand took the 200 and 400 dashes for Orono.

For the girls, Rachel Bergman continued her success in the pole vault, winning with a vault of 10 feet even. Bergman also won the 200 in 27.95 seconds while Hampden Academy’s Lauren Maltz took the 400 in 1:01.63.