ORONO – Hard work and long hours in the pool during the last few months paid off for both Molly Foley and Ian Carbone on Thursday night.

They swam different races and finished in different places, but the two age-group standouts both got fine results on the first day of the 2008 Maine Swimming Winter Combined Championships at the University of Maine’s Stanley M. Wallace Pool.

The four-day meet opened with the 200-yard medley relay for the older age groups, the 500 free for ages 10-and-under and 11-12, and the grueling 1,650 free for ages 13-and-over.

The competition continues Friday and Saturday before winding up with the final evening session Sunday at 4:30.

The meet includes a combination of competitors from clubs affiliated with U.S. Swimming, which is the national governing body for the sport, and YMCA swimmers who are also U.S. Swimming members.

By the end of Thursday’s events, Long Reach Swim Club of the Bath YMCA was leading with 695 points combined for the boys and girls meets. Coastal Maine Aquatics of Cape Elizabeth followed with 568 points and the Westbrook Seals were third with 214.

Both Foley, who swims for the Piscataquis Region YMCA in Dover-Foxcroft, and Carbone of the MDI YMCA team saw big time drops in the 10-and-under 500 free and 13-and-over 1,650, respectively. Foley even posted a win in her age group which she said was the first time she has won an event at the Combined Championships.

A fifth-grader at Nickerson Elementary School in Greenville, Foley had a top-seed time of 6 minutes, 37.48 seconds. Olivia Paione of Twin Cities Swim Team in Auburn was Foley’s closest competitor at 6:41.16.

Foley let Paione do the work early, hanging behind the TCST swimmer before moving up about 150 yards into the race. Liam Reading of Canoe City Swim Club, which is based at the Old Town-Orono YMCA, won the mixed-gender heat, but Foley wound up with the fastest girls’ time overall.

“We had a strategy where if the [person holding the lane counter] moves the board then I have to speed up a bit so I can match my times,” Foley said. “That’s really all I did. When that happened, I thought I had to pick it up a little bit.”

She cut around 15 seconds from her seed time, a difference she attributed to her work on turns.

“The last time I swam this I didn’t focus on keeping my head down in my flip turns so I think I worked on that a bit more,” said Foley, who admitted she prefers the sprint 50 free to the longer events. “I think that really helped me. I just tried to keep my head down and reach long and not go in choppy.”

Carbone found himself in a heat of the 1,650 with some of the top age group and former high school swimmers in the state, namely Matt Johnson of Long Reach and Nick Daly, who swims for Coastal Maine Aquatics.

Johnson is listed as being age 19 and Daly is 18. Carbone, meanwhile, is just a sophomore at MDI High School.

The 1,650 – that’s 66 lengths of the 25-yard pool – is a tough race for almost everybody. Carbone said he hadn’t performed it since last year, which was where his 18:15.67 seed time came from.

When Carbone finished Thursday, he had clocked a 17:41.03 for third place.

“Honestly, I think it was just all the hard work, all the practices,” he said after a few laps in the cool-down lane. “And, it’s kind of fun to go out there against all those guys who are four, five years older than me, track them down and see how much I can stay close to them.”

Johnson and Daly distanced themselves from the pack early – Daly eventually came from behind to win – but Carbone was within striking distance for some time.

“I was actually surprised at how fast Matt Johnson swam but I felt I could stay close to them,” Carbone said. “I was mostly trying to stay within 10 yards of them. I didn’t want to let them get too far ahead.”

In other boys results, Carbone was on an MDI team along with Justin Gilmartin, Ty Onda and Cullen O’Brien that placed third in the 13-and-over medley relay. Coastal Maine Aquatics clocked a 1:37.87 to break the Maine Swimming state record in that event.

Reading won the 10-and-under 500 free with CCSC teammate Eli Beauchamp in third.

In the girls meet, a Canoe City 13-and-over relay of Lauren Dwyer, Mariah Reading, Tara Nitardy and Paige Nitardy placed second. MDI’s Leila Johnson finished second in the 10-and-under 500 free, and Adrianna Beauchamp of the Bangor Y Barracudas was third in the 11-12 500 free. Chelsey Curran of MDI took third in the 13-and-over 1,650.

jbloch@bangordailynews.net

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