Waterville sweeps in ‘B’ state championships

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WINDHAM – Jonathan Lenz and Brandon Gastia don’t talk much outside of the track and field arena. In it, they’re collegial. The two seniors from Hampden Academy and Old Town, respectively, like each other.

Competing together in three jumping events during Saturday’s Class B state outdoor track and field championship meet, they also needed each other, or at least the competitive fire they provided each other.

Lenz and Gastia each wound up with an individual event championship, while Waterville’s Alex Lefebvre picked up three individual titles and anchored a winning relay to help the Panthers easily defend their 2006 crown.

Waterville scored 95 points for the win, while Falmouth and Lenz’s Hampden Broncos tied for runner-up status with 50 points. Fryeburg Academy and Gray-New Gloucester rounded out the top five.

The Waterville girls held off York and Greely and scored 99 points for the school sweep. It was the Panthers’ first championship since 2002, when they won the Class A title.

The Wildcats (85 points) were second, followed by the Rangers of Cumberland Center, Mount Desert Island in fourth and McAuley of Portland in fifth.

In the boys meet, Gastia and Lenz squared off in the long jump, triple jump and high jump, which is a frequent occurrence in both the indoor and outdoor seasons in Penobscot Valley Conference competitions. On Saturday Gastia bested Lenz for the long jump individual title, while Lenz nipped Gastia in the triple jump and placed second.

“The competition definitely helps us,” said Lenz, who won his state crown in the high jump. “We’ve gotten three or four PRs in our jumping events because of the rivalry.”

Gastia had Lenz all the way in the long jump and in the preliminary rounds of the triple jump. But Lenz jumped ahead in the finals and Gastia couldn’t keep up.

Lenz also took second in the javelin. Gastia didn’t place in the high jump.

“Whenever he does a jump, I feel like I have to push the bar higher,” Gastia said. “Then we keep going higher and higher and higher until we’re down to our last jumps. That’s what happened at PVCs and today in the triple jump. I kept pushing and he kept answering back.”

The two may have a chance to go at each other again in next weekend’s New England championships, depending on the triple jump results from the other classes around Maine.

Nokomis of Newport’s Steven Shea, who didn’t even place in the discus last year, won the event with a throw of 138 feet, 10 inches.

“It just seemed to click this year,” said Shea, who was second in the shot put by just one-quarter of an inch.

Even more impressive was the way Shea won the discus. He only had two clean throws – the other four were fouls.

“I was way right,” he said with a smile. “Sometimes I can’t get my hips around and I foul.”

PVC runners shined in the distance events. Caribou’s Sam Sheehan easily won the 3,200-meter race and also anchored the Vikings’ winning 3,200 relay, while Ellsworth’s Corey DeWitt held off two other competitors for the 1,600 title.

DeWitt went out in the lead and let Cape Elizabeth’s Stanis Moody-Roberts and Falmouth’s Ethan Shaw move up on him before taking over again with about 300 meters to go.

“I was hoping I’d be able to stay behind somebody and then just go right by,” DeWitt said. “It eventually worked out like that but not at first. I was feeling pretty good going into the last lap and I knew I’d be able to run close to 60 [seconds] if not under that. I just tried to lay it all out there and it worked.”

Lefebvre defeated both Gastia and Lenz in the triple jump. The Waterville senior also won both the 110 and 300 hurdles and ran on the winning 400 relay. Panthers Al Joseph and Zach Jordan went 1-2 in the 400.

Justin Vigeant of Wells set a Class B record in the 100 (11.0 seconds) and also won the 200 in a state-record 22.22.

In the girls meet, MDI sophomore Danielle Hutchins was unable to hold onto her 100 title from last year, but that was OK with her. She picked up two new individual championships in the 200 and 400 while finishing third in the 100.

The 400 proved to be a challenge as she nearly gave out in the final 100 but found some energy reserves for a final push.

“That was when I died,” Hutchins said. “The girl was next to me and I was like, I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to win this. I was done.”

Old Town junior Hilary Maxim has a rival of her own in the distance events. Maxim was the runner-up in both the 1,600 and 3,200 to McAuley standout Abby Iselborn, who won both events for the third year in a row.

Maxim stayed with Iselborn for the first mile of the 3,200.

“In our league there aren’t many people close to what I run so having her there makes me go faster,” Maxim said. “I broke the school record in the 1,600 today and I ran my fastest time in the 3,200 this year today and that was thanks to her. She helps me and she told me I help her.”

Waterville didn’t have one dominant finisher. The Panthers had just one individual champ in javelin winner Danielle Fossa, who was third in the discus and fifth in the shot put, and won the 3,200 relay. They mainly relied on performances like those from Shelby Tuttle, who was fifth in the 100 hurdles, third in the 300 hurdles, third in the triple jump, and ran on the third-place 1,600 relay team.

Greely’s Becky O’Brien set state records in the shot put (45-7) and the discus (140-8). The shot-put mark is new all-classes state record. Medomak Valley of Waldoboro’s Hillary Hall won the high jump (5-0).