John Bapst girls, Foxcroft boys collect titles

BREWER – John Bapst track and field coach Bruce Pratt was already pessimistic about his girls team’s chances to win a sixth straight Penobscot Valley Conference small school title even before Friday’s meet started.

Bapst was already missing three girls – and a conservatively estimated six points – due to athletic code violations and another girl who went to the hospital with a stomach virus Friday afternoon.

After Bapst’s Chelsea Andrews, the top seed in both the high jump and triple jump, banged her right leg hard on the right standard of the high jump and went to the hospital for what was originally thought to be a broken leg, Pratt gave his girls no chance.

Good thing he didn’t tell his girls that.

The Crusaders, also known as Team Adversity on this sun-drenched, sultry Friday afternoon at Pendleton Street Complex, still somehow managed to hold off a tough Orono squad, 130 points to 124 2/3.

The boys meet was almost as dramatic and just as close, but Orono found itself runner-up there as well as coach Tami Flanders’ Foxcroft Academy Ponies won their first PVC title in her five-year tenure with the team. Foxcroft finished with 108 points to outdistance defending champ Orono by 10.

Where the Crusaders did it with invaluable performances from key individuals, the Ponies did it with depth – quality athletes up and down the lineup.

“We had somebody in every single event except racewalk and high jump,” Flanders said. “We just had an overall solid team performance: sprinters, distance kids, throwers, jumpers, everybody.”

Of the 17 events in which the Ponies had participants, they scored points in 15, and no FA athlete had more than one individual victory. The Ponies didn’t win a single relay either, but their 4-by-400 relay team finished second to Orono.

The Ponies were led by senior Ian Imbert, who won the 100-meter dash, and junior Alex Kasprzak, who won the discus.

Conversely, the Crusaders’ girls team couldn’t have done it without individual point-producers like senior Meagan Tilton, who won the 100 and 300 hurdles races, and the Dow and Curry Outstanding Female Performer, Kim Spencer, a freshman who not only won the 1600 and 3200 runs, but also ran the first leg of Bapst’s first-place 4-by-800 relay team.

“Maren Askins was another one,” said Pratt. “We don’t usually double her in the 1,600 and 3,200, but her points in the 16, and 32 [third] along with Robin Bosse [fifth], were big for us.”

Tilton ran the anchor leg of the 4-by-400 relay that clinched the title with a third-place finish in the meet’s finale event.

The good news didn’t end there for Bapst as Pratt found out after the last relay that Andrews’ injury was “just a sprain” and she could possibly compete in next weekend’s state championship meet.

Spencer and Tilton were by no means the only individual standouts of the meet.

Meet bragging rights belong solely to Addison Pellerano, a senior at George Stevens Academy in Blue Hill. The Eagles’ distance specialist not only ran a grueling individual distance triple, he also ran the anchor leg of GSA’s first-place 4-by-800 relay team. Oh by the way, he also won all three individual races (800, 1600, and 3200) despite the oppressive heat.

What was the toughest event for the Dow and Curry Outstanding Male Performer?

“The last one,” he said in between gulps of air. “Not only because it was the last one, but because it was the longest one.”

Pellerano said he just wanted the challenge and to score as many points as possible since his team only consisted of seven boys and three girls.

“We were seeded among the top teams, and I just didn’t want to wonder what if, so I went for it,” said the Quinnipiac University-bound Pellerano. “I almost didn’t do the two-mile, but I wanted to defend my title and I’ll never get a chance to do this in college.”

Although the sun had gone down by the time the 3,200 rolled around, Pellerano said it was just as tough because the air was less humid and harder on the lungs.

Other individual boys meet stars were Orono’s James Berry, who won the 110 hurdles, the 300 hurdles, and the pole vault; and John Bapst’s Chris Fogler, who was first in the high jump and triple jump.

“At first, I was a little off in the pole vault, but I think it was just the heat,” said Berry, a senior who had never vaulted before his sophomore year, but now considers it his best event. “The big thing was just getting used to the wind and getting the right feel going up and over.”

The girls meet also had plenty of multiple winners. Foxcroft Academy’s Vanessa Baird won the discus and shot put, Orono’s Wesley Osterhout took the javelin throw and pole vault, and Fort Kent’s Noelle Dubay came away with titles in the high jump and long jump.

“I’ve been learning new techniques all season long and this is the first time I’ve put it all together,” said Dubay, who also was third in triple jump and fourth in the 100 hurdles.