LEWISTON – Toby Poirier looked lonely on the far end of the track at Lewiston High School. With the rest of his team running through warm-ups on the front straightaway, Poirier hoisted one post of the pole vault pit onto his shoulder and walked toward the pit, balancing the beam with precision, a sullen, determined look on his face.
“He loves to work on the field events,” said Lewiston coach Ray Putnam. “If there’s a running practice going on, you’ll see him going over there and setting up the pit for the pole vault or the high jump. He’s not going to be competing in the running events, so you can let him be independent and he’ll do a lot of things on his own.”
Meanwhile, Tiffany LeBlond helps lead the rest of the team up and down the track, during warm-ups.
“She’s a captain,” said Putnam. “She leads a lot by example, so she definitely has shown a great deal of leadership qualities.”
The two Lewiston athletes, both successful in a recent meet against rival Edward Little and fellow KVAC track power Waterville, have slowly but surely been molded into leaders in their third years with the team.
Rapid development
LeBlond’s emergence this season as a force, especially in the 100-meter hurdles, came as a surprise to most people. Her best finish last season was a distant 17th in the state.
“She showed a lot of promise her freshman year, and for her sophomore year, she had the type of improvement you expect in a kid going from their first to second year,” said Putnam. “This year, she just took off. I don’t know that I’ve seen a kid improve the way she has this year. From 17th in the state last year (in the 100-meter hurdles) to having the potential to win states this year, that’s quick.”
For LeBlond, the training pattern has remained the same – except for the addition of a new sport to her repertoire.
“As far as my training goes, my freshman year I didn’t do cross country running,” said LeBlond, “so maybe that’s why my times were slower. Sophomore year, I did cross country and then in the summer of that season I did rec track, and we had workouts before that, so a lot of things are playing into my improving and getting better.”
In the meet against Edward Little and Waterville, LeBlond bested the field in the 100-meter hurdles in a time of 16.7 seconds, better than Edward Little’s Rachel Barlion by one-tenth of a second.
“In the 100-meters, her hurdling form is just so good, that she’s so hard to beat,” said Putnam. “The more hurdles you put in front of her, the harder she’s going to be to beat.”
“It’s definitely my strong event, it’s the one I focus on the most in the meet,” said LeBlond, “but I try not to neglect other events.”
In that meet, Putnam pulled a switch and had LeBlond run in the 100-meter dash directly following the 100 hurdles, due to an injury elsewhere on the team. The result? A fourth-place finish in a time of 14 seconds flat.
“The focus is obviously on the 100 hurdles,” said Putnam. “I’m not even sure what we’ll do with her in the bigger meets yet. What we’re doing with her in the smaller meets right now is more like a workout, to build her confidence, to give her a chance to win, give her a chance to score but also a chance to build her speed up. With a kid of her caliber, these meets are practice.”
Field of talent
Meanwhile, back at the pole vault pit, Poirier sits down and breathes heavily after sliding the last stanchion into place.
“All I want to do is help the team the best I can,” said Poirier.
A lifelong track and field athlete, Poirier excels in almost every field event, but his strength, he has learned, is the javelin.
“You can put him in any field event, and he’ll be up near the top,” said Putnam. “One of the problems with him, though, is that we have him working in so many events that he can’t really, purely train in any one of them. If we just took him out of everything and put him, say, in the pole vault, he’d be going 12 , 13 feet, but his focus has to be javelin. I also think he’s a 40-foot triple jumper by the end of the year. His best opportunities are continuing to be all around. If he continues to do this in college, the kid’s a decathlete. Everybody says he has a perfect body to be a decathlete.”
For Poirier, the goal is a state title in the javelin next year, in his final season of high school track. A standout hockey player, he is the only member of that team on the track team, while most of his teammates on the ice elect baseball, lacrosse or tennis.
“I started in summer track, actually, when I was six, and just worked my way up,” said Poirier. “The first year they started the middle school program was my year there, so that helped, too.”
Between the two junior standouts, the Lewiston High School track team has at least two solid athletes toward which younger runners, jumpers and throwers can look for inspiration. Despite the relative lack of depth on the girls’ side and a boys’ team that is just now starting to gel, the two plod on, motivated by a will to win.
“Tiffany hates to lose, and Toby loves to win,” said Putnam. “It’s very different, but it works.”
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