Belanger earns honor as Bangor rolls to title Ram senior wins three events

ORONO – Three weeks ago, the Bangor girls indoor track and field team got the wakeup call in the form of a narrow loss to rival Old Town, that coach Maynard Walton said it needed.

The loss gave the Rams a little extra motivation to win their fourth Eastern Maine Indoor Track League championship in the last five seasons at the University of Maine field house Saturday.

Led by the meet’s outstanding performer in senior Jolene Belanger, the Rams rolled past Old Town 126.6 points to 70. Mount Desert Island was third in the 12-team field with 54.6 points, followed by Hampden Academy (42) and Orono (37.2) to round out the top five.

Belanger won the long jump (16 feet, 7 inches), triple jump (34-21/4), and 800-meter run (2 minutes, 22.86 seconds), giving her 30 meet points and the outstanding performer award, which teammate Casey Quaglia won on the boys side, something that hadn’t been accomplished in the 35-year history of the EMITL.

“I’m really psyched that there’s two of us who got it. Casey definitely deserves it,” Belanger said.

Bangor’s points were pretty spread out, a key formula to winning during the championship season, but Walton was concerned that Old Town would contend with the Rams.

“I was concerned coming in here tonight but satisfied,” he said. “The effort they gave, it was amazing. You take Jolene’s score and subtract it from the girls score, we still would’ve won.”

Walton also gave his assistant coaches, jumping coach Peter Sund and distance coach Jamie Cook, credit for the work they do.

“They know their skills, and my athletes respect them,” Walton said. “That’s the key thing [to having good assistants], that they know their skills, and that their athletes respect them.”

Bangor only had two individual winners – Kelly White was the other in the shot put with a heave of 33-6 – so it was the Rams’ depth and teamwork that was the difference in the meet.

“Oh certainly, yeah,” said Belanger when asked about how she had plenty of help from her teammates. “It took everyone’s [effort] to do it.”

Belanger’s closest individual battle of the day was in the 800 with Old Town’s Hilary Maxim. The Old Town sophomore ran toe-to-toe with Belanger in the first 400 before the Rams senior used her speed to pull away in the last half of the race.

“She’s been an excellent competitor, she did the mile right before, she’s an impressive athlete,” Belanger said of Maxim, who came in third in 2:27.50.

Maxim won the mile in 5:22.39 while teammate Eliza Tibbits captured the 2-mile in 11:59.91.

Jennie Lucy earned a pair of seconds for Bangor, completing arguably the toughest double in indoor track, the 400 and the 800 runs, in 1:02.24 and 2:26.71, respectively. Lucy also ran second leg on the 4×220-yard relay team, which finished second behind MDI. Bangor’s Kelly Krapf anchored the 4×220 and ran to third in the 60 in 7.81 seconds.

The meet featured several outstanding individual performances both on the track and in the field. Hampden Academy’s Lauren Maltz came within a second of breaking the EM record in the 400 (59.98 by Brewer’s Jen Puiia in 1999). Maltz finished in 1:00.90 and also won the 200 in 27.52, narrowly holding off Orono junior Rachel Bergman, who was second in 27.66. Bergman took the 60 hurdles in 10.00.

Other individual winners were Monica Gambilado of Ellsworth in the 60 (7.68), Mariah Grover of MDI in the high jump (4-10), and Orono’s Wesley Osterhout in the pole vault (9-0).

The 4×880 team from Mattanawcook Academy of Lincoln, consisting of Samantha Hayes, Mindy Martin, Jana Larlee, and Renee LafLamme, took that race in 10:29.06, while MDI’s winning 4×220 team (1:53.01) was made up of Sarah March, Grover, Katy Klaver, and Aimee Brooks.

TRACK NOTES: In Friday’s Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference championship meet at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Cony of Augusta sophomore pole vaulter Bethany Dumas soared to new heights, clearing 11-1. It’s believed to be the highest vault by a girl in the history of Maine indoor track. Dumas reportedly narrowly missed on three attempts at 12 feet.