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BAR HARBOR – Before they swapped their track shoes for prom dresses and tuxedoes, the Bangor High School track and field teams continued their supremacy of the Penobscot Valley Conference track world.
The Rams’ boys and girls dominated their respective meets, winning their third straight PVC titles on a balmy and sunny Saturday at Mount Desert Island High School.
The Bangor boys racked up 211 points, well ahead of runner-up Caribou’s 85. Hampden Academy finished third with 79.
The difference in the girls’ meet was not as whopping, but the Rams built themselves a formidable cushion in the early field events and distanced themselves from challengers MDI and Brewer. Bangor finished with 154 points, the Trojans 119 and the Witches 102.
In the girls’ meet, MDI sophomore Danielle Hutchins won the meet’s Outstanding Performer award for the second time in as many years, breaking two of her conference records in the process, including one twice.
She lowered the 100-meter dash standard to 12.58 seconds in the trials, then posted a 12.55 in the finals.
Hutchins admitted she had some nerves in the trials, but once the finals came around she was all business.
“When I got to the finals, I was all relaxed. I was all like ‘I can do this,'” Hutchins said.
After winning the 400 in 1 minute, 00.56 seconds and the long jump (15 feet, 11 inches), she blistered her 200-meter record with a speedy 25.97 clocking.
Was she nervous this time?
“I was really relaxed for the 200, and I was kind of nervous too because I had competition,” she said.
Hutchins had the disadvantage of drawing lane six for the 400, but that didn’t deter her.
“I know how to pace myself in the 400,” she said. “It’s pretty easy when you pace yourself. I’m used to it now.”
Hutchins’ efforts weren’t enough to propel the Trojans past the Rams, who racked up 20 points in the discus and 23 more in the high jump.
“They did better than they were seeded in those events,” Bangor coach Joe Quinn said. “In the discus they did better, [and] in the high jump they did better.”
Bangor hurdle specialist Dee Wilbur came out of the No. 3 spot to win the 100 hurdles, while teammate Chelsea Pratt was fifth.
Jennifer Smith, Allison Doucette and Hannah Griffin’s 2-5-6 finish in the pole vault gave the Rams eight more points than they were seeded for in that event.
“We were only seeded for three in that, and ended up with 11,” Quinn said. “[They] stepped up in a lot of different places.”
Wilbur, Robin Treadwell, Jennie Lucy and Sordell Cardello were Bangor’s only individual winners on the day. Lucy won the 800, pulling away from Old Town’s Hilary Maxim, who posted victories in the 1,600 and 3,200.
Cardello captured the discus with a toss of 94 feet, 4 inches while Treadwell led Bangor’s high jump contingent with a 4-10 effort.
Brewer was sparked by its relays. The 4×800, 4×100 and 4×400 teams all ran to first-place efforts. MDI’s Mercedes Frazier won the 300 hurdles and teammate Marcelle Hutchins the triple jump; Rylee Rawcliffe of Hampden took both the shot put and javelin while Brewer’s Kaitlin Noyes won the pole vault.
In the boys’ meet, Bangor senior Cam Cormier anchored a relay team that established a PVC record after tying another earlier in the day.
The Rams’ 4×100 quartet of Cormier, Tommy Wong, Curtis Coleman and Tyler Seekins ran to a 44.74, holding off Brewer by two-hundreths of a second.
Cormier actually had to bring the Rams from behind. After a shaky second exchange between Wong and Coleman, Coleman made up some ground on the backstretch.
“Then Tyler held off Kyle Allcroft [of Brewer] for a while, so I was like all right, this won’t be so bad,” Cormier said. “Then, I just gave it all I had.”
Cormier tied the 100-meter dash mark of 11.17 seconds in his qualifying heat, and he posted an 11.24 in the finals. After winning the 400 in 50.55, he held off Allcroft to take the 200 in 22.73 for his third win on the afternoon.
“My legs were definitely pretty tired for the 200, from all the events I did today,” Cormier said.
Bangor’s Casey Quaglia picked up two individual wins, cruising to victory in the 800 and later winning the 3,200, in addition to anchoring the winning 4×800 relay.
Quaglia had aspirations of lowering his 3,200-meter time coming into the meet, and putting himself in a solid position for next week’s state meet.
“I really needed to bring my 2-mile time down,” he said.
He ended up posting a solid time of 10:02.50, which followed a 2:01.60 effort in the 800.
“In the 800, I just felt so good,” Quaglia said. “[But] it’s just really hard in these conditions [85 degrees] to run great times and PR [personal record.]”
Fellow distance runner Riley Masters ran to second place in the 1,600 in 4:30.30, which was won by Ellsworth’s Corey DeWitt (4:26.82) and later finished third in the 3,200 (10:23.67).
Bangor had plenty of other individual winners; Tim Smith in the 110 hurdles, Seekins in the 300 hurdles, Ben Bambrick in the javelin and Robert Seccareccia in the shot put.
Brandon Gastia of Old Town and Jonathan Lenz of Hampden Academy continued their friendly rivalry in both the long and triple jumps. Gastia captured the long jump with a leap of 20-63/4 while Lenz came back to take the triple jump in 44-4. Lenz also won the high jump.
Nokomis of Newport senior Steve Shea finished first in the shot put with a toss of 50-10.
Coach of the Year awards went to Bangor’s Quinn on the boys side and MDI’s Ian Braun on the girls.
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