LEWISTON — Hope Mowry wasn’t going to let a little bit of ingested chlorinated water stop her.

Not on this night.

“I swallowed water on my first flip turn,” said Mowry, an EL senior captain who swam the anchor leg of the team’s final race against Lewiston. “It was hard to breathe the rest of the way, but I just said to myself, ‘You can breathe later.'”

After touching the wall and looking to the scoreboard, she breathed.

And yelled and screamed along with her teammates.

Thanks to an all-senior ‘B’ relay finish of third in the meet’s final event, the 400-yard freestyle, Edward Little leapfrogged Lewiston to pull out an 86-84 win in the teams’ final regular-season meet at the YWCA of Central Maine.

“You always want to do the best you can, but when it’s that close to beating your rival, you have to give it everything,” Mowry said.

“These kids know each other, they swim together all year long, and for the meet to come down to the last race, with EL needing to go first and third to win the meet, it was absolutely incredible,” EL coach Scott Morrison said.

Melissa Paione, for the third consecutive year, earned the Lesley Martin Award as the meet’s outstanding female swimmer for Edward Little. Racing in the night’s first two events and then in the final two events, Paione took home four first-place awards, including individual honors in the 100-yard breaststroke and the 200-yard freestyle.

“Something about both of these teams together, it’s a crazy atmosphere,” Paione said. “(With the schedule I had), I was debating whether to do the middle-of-the-meet warm-up or not. I should have probably swam, but I was too busy seeing everyone and talking to everyone.”

In the pool, she was all business, carving out a 2:05.51 in the 200 freestyle and a 1:10.68 in the 100 breaststroke, to go with 29.76 split in the 200 medley relay and a 57.30 split in the 400 free relay.

Camille Dionne, a senior, led the Blue Devils’ efforts with wins in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events as well as a first with her relay team in the 200-free relay.

Other individual winners in the girls’ meet Friday included EL’s Sam Goulette (200 IM, 100 back) and Lewiston’s Katie Tirabassi (100 fly) and Jessica Soucy (500 free).

“It’s kind of heartbreaking, but we can’t take anything away from EL,” Lewiston coach Tom Stocker said. “It could have gone either way. We have some great young talent here and we could never have gotten as far as we have this year without the leadership of our great senior captains.”

Devils’ depth too much for Eddies

Lewiston had plenty to celebrate in the boys’ meet. With depth throughout the events, the Blue Devils racked up points in every race on the card and swam off with a 110-45 victory.

“The great thing is, we have some great seniors, but a lot of our swimmers are young,” Stocker said. “We have a great bunch of freshmen and sophomores this year that have really stepped in and contributed.”

Colby Miles, despite what he called a “light meet,” swam off with top honors as he was named the Chris Campbell Award recipient as outstanding male swimmer.

“I swam two relays and a 500,” Miles said. “I thought I swam OK. But this meet, this meet is always special, and the depth of the team, each team I’ve been on has just been getting better and better. It’s just been like a big family, and each year the ties just keep getting stronger.”

Peter Titabassi took home wins for Lewiston in the 200-individual medley and 100 backstroke, Alex Small won the 50-yard freestyle, Ryan Pare won the 100 butterfly, Jacob Soucy came out on top in the 100 free, and Jacob Roy earned top honors in the 100 breaststroke.

Nelson Metayer was the lone event winner for the Red Eddies in the boys’ meet, earning top honors in the 200-yard freestyle event.

“Our boys have come together, and they’ve done a nice job, but Lewiston’s depth really had us beat tonight,” Morrison said.