MDI boys eye 3rd straight ‘B’ title; Martinez leads Old Town

Old TOWN – Two-time defending state champion Mount Desert Island will be the team to beat when the Class B squads gather Monday for the state boys swimming championships at Bowdoin College in Brunswick.

Although the Trojans’ depth likely will be too much for the rest of the field, there will be plenty of competition for the top spots in each event. A lot of that will come from Old Town and David Martinez, a student from Paraguay who has made a splash this winter.

Both Class B girls and boys meets will be held at Bowdoin’s Greason Pool. The consolation and championship finals for the Class B boys start at 7 p.m. The final heats in the girls’ meet begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

The Class A meets will be held Monday and Tuesday at the University of Maine’s Wallace Pool in Orono. The boys finals start Monday at 5 p.m., while the girls start Tuesday at 5 p.m.

Martinez, who comes from the Paraguayan capital, Asuncion, will go into states with the fastest Class B time in the state in the 200-yard individual medley relay (2 minutes, 2.03 seconds), and the 100 butterfly (53.75). Martinez, along with Old Town standouts Jacob Shanley, Gerald Herlihy and Jeff Dow, also have the top 200 medley relay time in the state (1:43.91).

Martinez isn’t ranked lower than 11th in any of the other six other individual races, and the 200 freestyle and 400 free relays are ranked third in the state.

“It depends on each event,” he said of the competition in the U.S. “Down there [in Paraguay] is really, really fast. Here it’s still competitive.”

Adding Martinez to daily practices has helped push the rest of the team.

“He gives us a lot of energy,” Shanley said. “He’s swimming so fast and breaking records. Last year it was just me and Gerald pretty much. And now we have David.”

Shanley has a good chance to win races, too. He holds the top time in the 100 backstroke and the second-fastest time in the 100 breaststroke, and is third in the IM. Herlihy could score in the breaststroke, 500 free and IM.

Old Town co-coaches Zach Gasaway and Adam Boynton said it didn’t take long for them to realize how good Martinez was. In the first meet of the year, his split time for 50 yards of butterfly during a relay was 24.06 – the fastest either coach had seen in years.

“We looked at each other like, Holy Cow,” Gasaway said.

Martinez also set a school and a pool record of 53.75 in the butterfly. He’s set and broken the school record a number of times.

“He’s just extremely coachable,” Boynton said. “You tell him what to do and he’ll do it. It’s obvious that he had a significant swimming background before he came here.”

An asthma sufferer, Martinez said the colder, drier Maine weather has helped him deal with his condition.

“I don’t have to use the [inhaler],” he said. “The change of weather helps me.”

The 17-year-old Martinez is living with the Sullivan family in Milford. Jennifer Sullivan is a senior at Old Town High.

“It’s amazing,” Martinez said of his year so far. “It’s different. The first thing you notice is the difference in the culture, making friends, the food, the sports. We don’t have a program with the high schools. It’s pretty much, if you want to play you have to go to a private group.”

Martinez played soccer for Old Town High in the fall and is thinking about the Old Town-based Canoe City Swim Club for the spring.

Martinez hails from the same country as Johanna Ghiringhelli, who the 2003-04 school year at Hampden Academy and turned into a soccer and basketball standout. Martinez he doesn’t know Ghiringhelli.

Martinez said his Old Town teammates have appraised him of the excitement of states – and he’s ready to race.

“I’m just trying to eat well and sleep good,” he said. “I’ve been checking the Web sites and it’s going to be a pretty good competition.”