Bangor boys, girls roll to PVC crowns

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BAR HARBOR – Danielle Hutchins didn’t just break two records, she shattered them.

The scary part for other sprinters in the Penobscot Valley Conference and statewide in Class B: She’s only a freshman.

The Mount Desert Island sprinter used home-track advantage to set conference records in the 100- and 200-meter dashes, with times of 12.63 and 25.98 seconds, respectively, on a hot, sunny afternoon at the MDI High School track.

Hutchins would also win the 400 in 58.79, pulling away from Hampden Academy’s Lauren Maltz on the third turn, and just missing the PVC record of 58.38 set by Caribou’s Lindsay Burlock two years ago.

“You can’t ask for much more from a freshman,” MDI coach Ian Braun said.

In the team competition, Hutchins’ Trojans came up shy of a PVC title, falling by a score of 157 points to 132 to defending champion Bangor.

Hampden Academy was third in the nine-team field with 111, followed closely by Old Town’s 108. Caribou notched 25 to round out the top five.

In the boys meet, Bangor, led by Outstanding Performer award winner Cam Cormier, rolled to the team sweep, racking up 150 points.

Nokomis of Newport won a close five-team battle for second place with 71 points. Caribou was third with 68, Brewer fourth with 65, and Hampden fifth with 58.

Hutchins, who won the meet’s Outstanding Performer award, had some butterflies before the 100.

“I was really nervous to do my 100, but I saw two people beside me and I knew I had to, like, win this,” said Hutchins, who tied for first in the long jump with Bangor’s Jolene Belanger with a leap of 16 feet, 2.50 inches.

Belanger was awarded first by virtue of a better second jump in the finals.

Hutchins had plenty of competition in all three of her races: Maltz in the 400 as well as Allison Clukey of Bangor and Monica Gambilado of Ellsworth in both the 100 and 200, which was helpful to her because she had plenty of opponents to push her.

“Yeah, it does [help me run faster], because I have competition,” Hutchins said.

She added that the home-field advantage helped.

“It did, because I knew that I was home and there was nothing to worry about,” she said.

She’ll have the home-track luxury again next week, as MDI is hosting the Class B state meet.

In the team competition, the Rams, who trailed the Trojans most of the way, pulled away in the final events, scoring their decisive points in the discus and 800.

“We did have a lot of points in those final events, and we knew it was gonna be that way,” said Bangor coach Joe Quinn.

Jennie Lucy, Belanger, and Caitlyn Smith took places 1-4-5 in the 800 while Noelle Lincoln came out of the sixth seed in the discus to win with a heave of 95-9, one inch farther than runner-up Nori-Francis Mezger of Hampden. Sorrell Cardello was third (91-11).

The Rams outscored the Trojans 34-2 in those two events alone, and that proved to be the difference.

“Bangor, they have a lot of depth and good coaching as well,” Braun said. “They just pulled away at the end. They did a great job.”

Bangor’s Clukey, a sophomore, finished third in the 100 and second in the 200, anchored the Rams’ winning 4×100 relay, and took fifth in the long jump. Amanda McGinn, a senior, led off the 4×100, ran to first in the 100 hurdles (16.73), and was fourth in the long jump.

The other runners on Bangor’s 4×100 were Angela Reed and Kelly Krapf.

MDI’s other individual winners were Mercedes Frazier in the 300 hurdles (48.89) and Mariah Grover in the high jump (5-2). The Trojans’ 4×400 and 4×800 teams were both victorious.

Old Town was led by double winner Hilary Maxim, who took both the 1,600 (5 minutes, 18.36 seconds) and 3,200 (12:08.58) and ran to second in the 800 in 2:26.23. Kendra Gould took the triple jump for the Coyotes and teammate Michelle Goulette was third.

In the boys meet, Bangor standout Cormier just missed the 19-year-old PVC record in the 200, running to a time of 22.72 seconds. The hand-timed record is 22.5.

“He’s just starting to get loose and run really well. The warm weather today made a big difference,” Quinn said.

Cormier’s winning time in the 100 was 11.30 and he ran second leg on the winning 4×100 relay team, which included Ben Ludwig, Adam Billings, and Curtis Coleman.

The 800 was the most intense of all the races contested on the track, with Corey DeWitt of Ellsworth, Bangor’s Casey Quaglia, and Brewer’s Brendan Carr finishing 1-2-3, less than a second apart.

DeWitt held off a late charge from Quaglia to earn the win in 1:59.46. Quaglia finished in 1:59.60 and Carr 2:00.31.

Quaglia added two more second-place efforts, in the 1,600, which was won by DeWitt in 4:35.79, and in the 3,200, taken by Sam Sheehan of Caribou in 10:03.70.

The heat did affect most of the runners, but Quinn said most of his athletes had no problem with it.

“Some kids had some hard times in certain areas, but overall most kids had personal bests today,” he said. “We had a great day, we had first place in the discus and first place in the javelin. A lot of kids really stepped up.”

The Rams’ Ben Bambrick took the javelin with a heave of 171-8 while Antoine Gerow and Ryan Mulligan finished 2-5 in that event. Robert Seccareccia rolled to a win in the discus with a toss of 141-9.

Riley Masters ran to fourth in the 1,600 in 4:36.25 and took sixth in a gutsy effort in the 3,200 in 11:00.52.

Benson Mensah-Bonsu of Nokomis ran to first in the 400 in 52.06 seconds and added a fourth in the 100 and third in the 200 for the Warriors.

In the long jump, Old Town’s Brandon Gastia nailed a jump of 20-4 on his last attempt in the finals, good enough for a win over second-place finisher Danny Smith of MDI (20-3.75).