BANGOR – With a slim four-point lead going into the final event of Saturday afternoon’s meet, Bangor boys swimming coach Phil Emery gathered eight swimmers – the members of two four-man relay teams – in a corner of the Husson College pool deck.

With a fast Greely of Cumberland Center relay team likely to win that last event, the 400-yard freestyle relay, Emery knew the positions behind first place would be crucial.

“I didn’t want to put too much pressure on them,” Emery said. “I told them, this meet comes down to second and third. Second and third, we win the meet.”

The Rams responded, placing two relays in the top three to hold off the Rangers by just two points. Bangor scored 88 to Greely’s 86.

The Bangor girls had it a bit easier, rolling to a win over the Rangers, 107-78.

The meet was a matchup of two of the top programs in the state. Both Bangor teams won Class A state titles last year, while both Greely squads were the Class B state runners-up.

The Greely boys won seven events Saturday, including all three relays, as brother pairs Ian Mecray and Nathan Mecray and Andrew Bowden and Patrick Bowden did most of the scoring.

But the Rams were able to counter with Joey Quinn, who edged Andrew Bowden for wins in the 200- and 500-yard freestyle, and Taylor Wicks, who took the 200 individual medley and the 100 backstroke.

Wicks’ win in the backstroke, which is the third-to-last event, helped give the Rams a bit of a cushion.

“James [Moreside] came up to me before the backstroke and said, you need to win this for us to have this meet,” Wicks said.

The Rams then went 3-4-5 in the breaststroke to set up the 400 free relay.

Patrick Bowden led off for Greely, giving the Rangers a comfortable lead they wouldn’t relinquish. The Rams were expecting that. And they figured Moreside would anchor their top relay to a second-place finish, which he did.

Third place, however, was key – and the anchor job fell to Doug Farrell. He held off Greely’s Peter Pacent in the final lengths to seal third place and the win.

Emery said he considered moving swimmers around from the 200 free relay to strengthen one of the 400 groups but decided against it.

“I thought about taking one of the fast guys out of the 200, figuring [Greely was] going to win the 200 anyway, to kind of guarantee something in the 400,” he said. But I didn’t want to start messing around with that. … So really it was kind of neat to have it come down and have those guys do what they did.”

Ben Rapaport, Mike Arell and Thomas McOscar made up the rest of the third-place relay.

Greely coach Rob Hale, who served as a Bangor assistant coach from under Emery from 1986 to 1989, said he wasn’t keeping track of the team points. Even if he had, Hale added, he wouldn’t have made any changes to the relays just to win the meet – that’s not his primary concern.

“We didn’t even know the relay mattered,” Hale said. “Maybe we could have juggled it, but I’m not going to go to one swimmer and say, we need to put someone else in for you because you’re not good enough. We’re just learning to race. Meets are a glorified practice for us.”

Quinn and Andrew Bowden made for a fun 500 free as the two battled back and forth until Quinn finally held off Bowden.

“We knew it was going to be a close meet, so I knew I had to try to win my individual events,” Quinn said. “I already knew [his time] from last week, so I knew it was going to be a close race. I was just trying to beat him all the way.”

Bangor’s Andrew Sawyer was the only male diver entered in the meet.

In the girls meet, the Rams got individual wins from Grace Barnett, Sorrell Cardello, Alicia LaFlamme and Erin Thomas, while also sweeping the relays.

Thomas won the 200 free and the 100 back, while Barnett took the 200 individual medley and the 100 breaststroke, edging Cardello in the latter event. It was one of the closer races of the girls’ meet.

“It’s awesome,” Cardello said of her friendly breaststroke rivalry with Barnett, who broke Cardello’s school record in that event last year. “I have somebody to race and she has somebody to race. We go off each other.”

Cardello chalked up a win in the 100 fly and LaFlamme was the 500 free winner.

Bangor’s Tatjana Spanehl, an exchange student from Germany, was second in the 100 free and anchored both the winning medley relay and 200 free relay.

“We’re excited about our relays,” Barnett said. We have a lot of swimmers we can substitute in, which is nice. After a while you get tired of swimming the same relays all the time.”

Greely’s Kelley O’Brion won the 100 free. Other Ranger winners were Jackie Andrews (50 free) and Jessica Howard, who was the 2007 Class B Diver of the Year.

jbloch@bangordailynews.net

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