LEWISTON – When Alexa Kaubris reached back to grab her baton, her Dirigo 4×400-meter relay team was in last place. Forty meters ahead, Telstar seemed to be on its way to a win in the event, and 20 meters ahead, Lisbon appeared ready to steal the meet away from the Cougars.
And then Kaubris turned on the jets.
“I figured I’d need to beat the Lisbon girl,” said Kaubris. “After I passed her, I figured I might as well go for it all.”
When Kaubris, a senior, handed the baton to sophomore Molly Ray, she had a 20-meter lead on Telstar’s third runner in the relay, and Lisbon had faded to sixth.
“I knew I just had to hold on and not lose the lead,” said Ray. “That’s all I needed. Alexa ran amazing, she was like Superwoman.”
With the surprise win in the event (Dirigo was seeded fourth), and a surprising sixth-place finish for Lisbon, Dirigo held on to edge the Greyhounds 91-88, claiming its first Mountain Valley Conference girls’ title since the event started in 1975. Defending champion Winthrop, which had won 15 of the last 18 MVC girls’ titles, finished third with 75 points, followed by Boothbay (59) in fourth and Madison (59) in fifth.
“We knew it was going to come down to the end and those 4×400 girls,” said Gilbert, as she tried to collect herself. “After last year, where it was really close, this is such a great feeling.”
At last year’s meet, Dirigo received information that they had won the meet, were handed the trophy and ran a victory lap, only to be told afterward that there had been a scoring glitch and that Winthrop had actually won.
This year, Kaubris also won the javelin, finished second in the 400 and was part of the winning 4×100-meter relay team.
Lisbon, meanwhile, nearly considered themselves out of contention midway through the meet, after Dirigo took 10 points in the 4×100-meter relay and 10 more in the 400-meter dash. Then, the Cougars led the Greyhounds by 24 points.
Emily Poliquin got six of those points back in the 200-meter dash, though, and another 10 in the triple jump, where she won with a jump of 34-feet, 8-inches, and after 15 events, Lisbon trailed by just nine points.
Mindy Sullivan, who had one of the better individual days of the meet with a third place in the shot put and a second place finish in the javelin, also launched the discus 94-feet to place second. Dirigo had no answer, and the margin shrunk to one, setting the scene for Kaubris and the 4×400-meter team.
Rebecca Leclerc of Livermore Falls led the Andies with wins in the 100- and 200-meter dashes, while Amanda Sontag took first place in the 100-meter hurdles.
Winthrop hurdlers Kim Toothaker and Melissa Nguyen combined to score 32 points in the two hurdle events, including a 1-2 finish in the 300-hurdles. The Ramblers were plagued by a smaller-than-usual team this season.
“We have the quality on this team, but we just don;t have the numbers,” said Nguyen. “In a meet like this, that wasn’t good.”
Nguyen also placed third in the pole vault and wan a leg of the 4×400-meter relay for the Ramblers, who finished third in that race.
Katherine Gagne of Dirigo helped her team’s cause with a win in the 1,600-meter run and a second-place finish in the 800-meters. Brianne Bailey of Telstar took the 3,200-meter title, while Dirigo’s Teri Slawek finished third, ahead of both Nerissa Gross and Anna Turcotte of Lisbon.
Falcons soar
Head-to-head, Lisbon had defeated Mountain Valley all season. For the second straight year, the Falcons exacted their revenge in the MVC meet.
Dylan Cayer won two individual sprints and was on the winning 4×100-meter relay and Tyler Jasud took first in the 800- and 1,600-meter runs and second in the 3,200, pacing the Falcons to a 158-123 win over Lisbon.
“The biggest key for us was going 1-2 in the 800,” said Mountain Valley coach Al Cayer. “That, and taking one and three in the discus.”
In all, Mountain Valley athletes won eight of the 19 events and came in second in six of them.
“I think it’s pretty safe to say this now,” said Al Cayer, “that this team has by far the most talent individually in the conference. We don’t necessarily have the quantity, but we have the quality.”
Perhaps the best move Al Cayer made was moving Jasud and Josh Burke from the 4×800-meter relay, where they would normally run, to other events where he could use the scores to offset a strong Lisbon distance team.
“That was easily the best move,” said Lisbon coach Dean Hall. “When they went 1-2 in the 800, that was the end of the meet right there. We knew it.”
The Falcons followed that up with a 1-3 finish in the discus by Travis Fergola and Jarod Oldham, sealing the meet.
Winthrop had a strong showing in the boys’ meet and for a while looked ready to give Lisbon a run for its money before falling off at the end. The Ramblers finished with 98 points, followed by Hall-Dale with 72 in fourth. Wiscasset finished a distant fifth with 29 points.
Christian Talmage of Mt. Abram had a strong day for the Roadrunners, taking first in the 110-meter high hurdles and a second in the 300-meter hurdles, while Justin Cornell of Lisbon took first in the racewalk.
Jasud and Tyler Clark of Lisbon locked horns three times Saturday, with Jasud coming out just ahead of Clark in the 800 and 1,600. Clark took the 3,200-meter run, and Lisbon swept the top four places in the pole vault to secure 28 points.
Jake Clark and Kyle Feeney placed first and second in the long jump for Winthrop, while Clark took a win in the triple jump for the Ramblers. Elijah Trefts of Lisbon won the shot put and took second in the discus, and Chris Lever of Mountain Valley won the javelin.
All of the teams in the MVC will have one last chance to qualify next week in a rare second off-week between this meet and the state meets, which run the first weekend of June.
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