LEWISTON – First impressions are everything.

Without a positive spin on the first track meet he attended, Josh Pelletier may never have picked up a javelin for the Lewiston High School track and field team.

And that would have been a shame.

“I came to the home meet and checked it out,” Pelletier said. “Then I went to (Lewiston AD Jason) Fuller and looked into joining the team.”

The reason he looked in the first place was a well-timed weight-lifting session. Staying later than usual, Pelletier began lifting with the track team’s throwing squad. With them was throwing coach Jeff Manson.

“When I saw him for the first time in the weight room, I said, ‘Hey, you look like a pretty athletic kid, what are you doing this spring?'” Manson said.

Truth was, Pelletier had torn his rotator cuff playing baseball as a freshman, and he hadn’t picked up a spring sport since.

Until that day.

“We were almost two weeks into the season last year when he came out,” Manson said. “Putnam put him out on the track at first, because he’s a fast kid, and I didn’t have him for almost another three weeks.”

Finally, Manson had his chance with Pelletier.

“First day, I threw 100 feet standing, which I guess was pretty good for just starting,” Pelletier said. “It went from there.”

“Every single meet last year, he threw further than the meet before, even through to New Englands, which he’d qualified for,” Manson said. “This year, same story through the third or fourth meet, he kept gaining distance.”

Each week, Pelletier’s distance brought him closer to the school record, and to a No. 1 seed at the state meet. Last weekend, at the KVAC meet in Bath, he uncorked a school record throw of 181 feet, 4 inches.

With a javelin designed to top out at 170.

“We had gotten him a new javelin, because he’d maxed out on the other one,” Lewiston boys’ track and field head coach Ray Putnam said.

On his next throw, he used the new javelin. That one went 182-6. And he wasn’t done.

Pelletier maxed out last Saturday at 185 feet, 4 inches.

“I think at states, we can probably expect a 190-foot throw,” Manson said. “At New Englands, maybe not much more, but if he has a lucky throw he could hit 200.”