BREWER – The Brewer High School girls dominated the indoor track and field landscape in Eastern Maine last winter, and they’re hoping that success carries over into the spring season.

The Witches’ boys and girls respective quests for a Penobscot Valley Conference championship kicks off Thursday afternoon with a five-team meet at Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference entry Belfast.

“It’s going to be a great meet. We’re very excited about that, it should be a lot of fun. We really appreciate them letting us come down,” said coach Jamerson Crowley, whose club will compete against the host Lions, Erskine Academy of South China, Lincoln Academy of Newcastle and Messalonskee of Oakland.

The meet starts at 4 p.m.

Crowley was especially happy with the invitation to this early-season meet since he’ll have his full complement of athletes.

The Witches will be without a number of runners for their April 25 PVC opener at home, with some athletes going on a school trip to Europe and a band trip to Philadelphia, respectively.

“That’s why we’re really excited about the first meet, because we are going to have pretty much the whole team,” said Crowley. “It’s important that first meet to have everybody.”

The Brewer girls are one of the early-season favorites in the PVC, along with three-time defending champ Bangor and Mount Desert Island, which has finished second the last two seasons.

“You can’t forget about MDI, you can’t forget about Old Town, you basically can’t forget about any team in this league,” Crowley said.

The Witches feature a lot of their corps from their indoor team, including sprinter/jumper Mackenzie DeGraff, sprinter Kira Giroux, hurdlers/jumpers Colleen Carr and Carolynn Tuck, and distance runners Michelle Haluska, Katie Snow and the versatile Kaitlin Noyes, who specializes in the pole vault, middle distances and sprints.

Caitlyn Wilson gives Brewer even more versatility in the distance and throwing events, as the junior scored in the javelin in the state meet last season.

Among the Witches’ newcomers are Sheri Valley, who has been working in the high jump, hurdles and with the sprinters this preseason, and freshman Rylee Hutchins, who will specialize in the sprints, hurdles and triple jump.

“It’ll be a little different than in indoor, but really we’re still strong in the places we’ve been strong in,” said Crowley. “We’ve got some young sprinters out that we’re pretty excited about.”

One of Brewer’s strong points will be its relays, all three of which (4×100, 4×400, 4×800) earned first-place PVC honors last spring.

“We really try to emphasize being strong in those relays. On the girls side it works out real well because we are so deep,” said Crowley.

The Brewer boys will be led by Ben Sinclair, a sophomore sprinter who is coming off a strong indoor campaign during which he ran a 50.71 in winning the EMITL individual title in the 400.

Like the girls, the boys will have depth in the distance events, led by sophomore Evan Taylor, while Chris Corey will aim for solid points in the long and triple jumps, along with the hurdles.

rmclaug@bangordailynews.net

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