Local Sports
Class A track: Silver for EL girls
Ashten Hackett, left, of Edward Little High School and Grace Maclean of Bangor High School compete during the 100 meter hurdle final during the Class A State Track Meet at Cony High School in Augusta on Saturday.
Abby Dunn, right, of Edward Little High School hugs Kerry Cummings of Morse High School after Dunn won the 1600 meter race walk during the Class A State Track Meet at Cony High School in Augusta on Saturday.Dunn is the 2010 state champion.
Chyla Hiott, center, of Edward Little High School competes against and Grace Maclean, bottom, of Bangor High School and Denae Johnson of Bangor during the 300 meter hurdles during the Class A State Track Meet at Cony High School in Augusta on Saturday.
Abby Dunn (1) of Edward Little High School pulls out in front during the 1600 meter race walk during the Class A State Track Meet at Cony High School in Augusta on Saturday. Behind Dunn are Jaclyn Masters (4) of EL, Nicole Court-Menendez (5) of Lewiston High School, Abby Lochala (6) of Mount Blue High School and Emily Reed (10) of Mount Blue. Dunn won the race and is the 2010 state champ.
Hanna Mogensen of Edward Little High School competes during the long jump during the Class A State Track Meet at Cony High School in Augusta on Saturday.
Michael Lucas, far right, of Edward Little High School competes during the 110 meter hurdle final during the Class A State Track Meet at Cony High School in Augusta on Saturday.
Kyle Rousseau of Lewiston High School competes during the 400 meter dash during the Class A State Track Meet at Cony High School in Augusta on Saturday.
Ricardo Hairston of Edward Little High School competes during the long jump during the Class A State Track Meet at Cony High School in Augusta on Saturday.
Kelton Cullenberg, third from right, of Mount Blue High School competes during the 1600 meter run during the Class A State Track Meet at Cony High School in Augusta on Saturday.
AUGUSTA - In many respects, Edward Little High School lived up to its advance billing at Saturday’s Class A track and field championships.
The Red Eddies hit their predicted point totals based on pre-race seeding almost to the digit. Athletes who anticipated a win, did, by big margins. Events that were expected to end with a sea of maroon on the podium didn’t disappoint.
Sometimes your best just isn’t enough.
EL fell eight points shy of a successful title defense in the girls’ meet, instead watching Scarborough walk away from Cony High School with the crown.
“It’s heartbreaking. It’s disappointing. But they scored what they were supposed to,” EL girls’ coach Rebecca Hefty said. “It stinks because I feel like we deserve it, but maybe we don’t. This was the opportunity, the chance to repeat. They tried. They did a great job. They get to take another trophy home.”
In a closely contested boys’ meet, EL finished fourth -- a whisker behind runner-up Cheverus and third-place Gorham.
Brunswick, led by dynamic distance runner Will Geoghegan -- won its first team title since 1996.
“I’m very pleased with our performance today. Absolutely no complaints,” said EL boys’ coach Ryan LaRoche. “It just wasn’t enough to keep away that juggernaut from Brunswick. Will Geoghegan scored (38) points by himself, which is more than all but seven teams here. And they have so many other athletes.”
With most of the EL girls’ points generated in the all-day field events, the Eddies were an oh-by-the-way in the sporadic public address announcements of the team scores throughout the afternoon. EL was sixth, 30 points behind Scarborough, with only three events remaining.
Ashten Hackett and Chyla Hiott went one-two in the triple jump, leading a run of five Eddies in the top seven. But Christy Manning of Scarborough (second) edged EL’s Katherine Harmon (fourth) in discus to pad the Red Storm’s advantage.
That left EL needing a miracle in the 4x400 relay. And the quartet of Emily Hartnett, Hanna Mogensen, Marie Dufresne-Dixon and Jaclyn Masters almost provided it, staying within two strides of top-seeded Scarborough throughout the race.
“They broke the school record,” noted Hefty, “which was set last year at this meet.”
It would have taken a win and a fourth-place finish by reigning event champion Scarborough to force a tie for the championship, however. And the Red Storm held on for only their second event victory of the day. Relay team member Nicole Kirk posted the other win in the 200.
Hackett supplemented her triple jump win with a third in the 100 hurdles and sixth in the 4x100 relay. Jaclyn Masters took away two runner-up finishes (4x400, pole vault) and two fourths (racewalk, 4x800).
“If anything we displaced (Scarborough) in a lot of events. There were a few places like the 400 and long jump where we didn’t score what we were supposed to, but we picked it up elsewhere,” Hefty said. “In the 4x800, we were seeded sixth and finished fourth.”
Abby Dunn of EL successfully defended her racewalk title in a time of 7:29.37 that was seven seconds better than last spring.
“The girl from Gorham (Jenny Thuotte) has been training hard all season, and I knew she would really push me,” Dunn said. “I got my PR (personal record). I didn’t think I would get the state record yet. That will be one of my goals for next season.”
Emilia Scheemaker (second in long jump, third in triple jump) and Emily Tolman (second 400, fourth long jump, fifth 200) joined Kirk and Manning as top scorers for Scarborough.
Geoghegan provided more than double Brunswick’s final 82-66 margin in the boys’ meet, winning the 800, 1,600 and 3.200 and anchoring the Dragons’ 4x800 relay team to second behind Cheverus.
“I usually try to take the lead and break out and drop people that way,” Geoghegan said. “I feel like I’m better in a race like that than one where another person is right there and I have to have a finishing kick.”
In his closest race of the day, Geoghegan proved he can win one the hard way, too.
EL’s Jeremy Theriault took the lead from Geoghegan as the two raced down the backstretch on the bell lap of the 800. Geoghegan regained the edge as the field made the turn for the final 100 meters.
“I looked at the clock after 400 and we were around 57 seconds, so I knew we were going to have some fast times,” said Theriault, the defending race champion. “I just went for it at that point and pulled Will with me. If I had it, I had it, and if I didn’t, I didn’t. It was my PR, and that’s what we’re out here to do is run times. That’s why we race. It wouldn’t be any fun of you were out here doing it by yourself.”
As Theriault began to fade, out of nowhere charged Lewiston’s Faisal Abdillahi on the outside.
Abdillahi nearly pulled even with Geoghegan at the 50-meter mark before falling two strides short, settling for a school record of 1:56.57, four-tenths off the winning pace.
“I think he felt me coming up behind him. Will is crazy. Second to him is great, but I was going for the win,” said Abdillahi, a senior. “I really didn’t look at the 800 until my junior year. It has the combination of endurance, which I had, and the power and speed.”
Ricardo Hairston capped his first year of track with an EL school record in the triple jump, soaring 44-3 ½ to top his closest competition by 18 inches.
“It definitely was exciting, being my first year of track and winning a state championship,” Hairston said. “I was pretty confident. I didn’t think I’d go 44. That came out of nowhere.”
Keith Tremblay defended his racewalk championship and was sixth in javelin, where teammate Steve Giorgetti took second.
Faisal Noor and Michael Lucas also scored in multiple events for EL.
Kelton Cullenberg of Mt. Blue finished third in the 3,200 and fifth in the 1,600. Mt. Blue’s girls were runner-up to Mt. Ararat in the 4x800 relay.
koakes@sunjournal.com
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