ORONO – Coming into Saturday’s Class A track and field state championship meet, Waterville coach Ian Wilson worked up two distinct scenarios for his girls team: best case and worst case.

“We went over the seeds the day before and we added up the points,” said senior captain Lauren Tebbetts. “At first we were down by 10 points, but then when we factored in our goals and what we wanted to do, we were up by 20.”

When all was said and run at the University of Maine’s Beckett Family Complex on a bright, balmy and sometimes blustery day, the Purple Panthers finished in between to win their first outdoor state title and accomplish a rare feat in the process.

“We’ve put it together in indoor the last three years and it’s finally happened in outdoor, too,” said Wilson. “Thornton Academy coach George Mendros told me this is the first time in Class A track a girls team has won indoor and outdoor the same year, so we’re very proud of this effort.”

Waterville scored 70 points to outpace runner-up Edward Little of Auburn by 121/2 and third-place Thornton by 13.

South Portland won the boys title with 98 points and Edward Little was also boys runner-up with 71.

“We lost points in some events, but we were able to more than make up for it in a lot of other areas,” Wilson said. “That’s really our focus is to have everyone shoot for at least one spot ahead of where they’re seeded.”

That approach certainly worked for Waterville, but it was the joint contribution of twin sisters Lauren and Elise Tebbetts that really made the Panthers’ win possible.

The graduating twins combined for 52 points, although Lauren gets family bragging rights with 26 all by herself and another 10 for teaming with Elise, Eileen Dunn, and Erin Lawler on Waterville’s winning 400-meter relay team.

“It’s so cool. We’re all so happy because this may be my last year doing track at all and it’s a great way to wind up,” said Elise Tebbetts, who was seeded sixth in both the long and triple jumps but finished fourth in each. “My last day of school was yesterday and my prom’s tonight, so this is a really great couple days.”

Lauren also exceeded her expectations by delivering on her top seeding in the pole vault with a win and then finishing second in the 200 as a fifth-place seed.

“It wouldn’t be nearly as fun if I didn’t have her along competing with me,” said Elise Tebbetts, who also notched a second in the 100 hurdles. “We try to help each other however we can, we train together … everything.”

They also celebrated together along with their teammates in a unique way Saturday night.

“They told me that they’re all wearing their medals on their prom dresses when they go tonight,” Wilson said.

Even older sister Erin will share in the triumph of her sisters and alma mater.

“She never won a title when she was here, but she helped get things started, so I’ll give her one of my medals,” said Elise Tebbetts.

Bangor senior Emily Capehart led the way for local Eastern Maine athletes as she won the triple jump and finished second in both the 300 hurdles and long jump.

“I was kind of disappointed because I didn’t jump my best in the long jump and might have won if I had, and then I stumbled a little coming down over a hurdle in the 300,” said Capehart, who plans to continue her track career at Brown University next year. “Every year I’ve won a different event at states, but I never seem to win the same one. I can’t complain, though. At least I win something.”

Mt. Blue of Farmington senior Adam Staier also made sure his last Maine high school meet was a memorable one as he broke his own state record (set just a week ago) in the 1600 racewalk by 3.11 seconds with a time of 6:01.48.

“Last week, that 6:04 kind of came out of the blue, so the talk all week has been about going sub six,” Staier said. “I really wanted to try and go under six minutes and it was really close. I’d like to be able to redo the third lap because if I’d done it in 1:32, it would have put me right under.”

Staier, who will take his considerable skills to Division II Mans State College in Pennsylvania on a full athletic scholarship, says the ever-present stigma of racewalking as more of a curiosity than a legitimate event finally appears to be lessening.

“I think the momentum’s swinging toward racewalking. I think it’s turning around now,” he said. “I mean, running a 6-minute mile isn’t that hard, but walking a 6-minute mile is hard.

“Hey, without it, I wouldn’t have a scholarship to go to school and I didn’t get that out of nothing. I’ve worked hard to get where I am.”

Edward Little’s 3,200 relay team of Jared Kuvaja, Samuel Fletcher, Nathan Cleveland, and Chris Pelliccia set a meet record with a time of 8:02.41, and South Portland’s Jesse Ludwig jumped 23 feet in the long jump to break the state record.

Other Eastern Maine individual champions included Waterville junior Kyle Irvine, who won both the 110 high hurdles and the pole vault; Cony of Augusta’s Jimmy Oliver (100) and Dominic Blakely (200); and Mt. Blue’s sister distance duo of Rachel Yates (1,600) and Elena Yates (1,600 racewalk).

Irvine was hoping to beat his own state record of 14-foot-6 set in last year’s state meet, but tried to go from 14-0 to 14-8 and missed at the higher setting.

“That was kind of tough, but I’m coming off a hamstring injury after I completely blew it in one of our home meets and was out for three weeks,” Irvine said. “But considering the way the wind was swirling and blowing sideways and stuff, I could have done a lot worse.”

Other local standouts in the meet were Bangor’s Conor Stephens, who was second in the javelin; and a pair of Brewer girls: Heather Clark, who was second in the 1,600, and Danielle Lainez, runner-up in the triple jump.