After a convincing sweep Friday, Hall’s Greyhounds won the MVC meet for the seventh straight year. Now Lisbon will need a new mantra for next year.

“We have all these sayings,” said Hall. “This year it was Seven is Heaven. I have no idea what to do for eight.”

The Lisbon boys finished with 136.50 points while Hall-Dale was second with 106.50. Madison was third with 72. Telstar and Winthrop rounded out the top five with 59 and 56.50 respectively.

“The mindset for us was we were going to be neck-and-neck with Madison or Hall-Dale,” said Morgan Reeves, who won three events and was named the top male athlete in the meet. “So we knew we needed to find some spots.”

The  girls finished with a whopping 181 points. Madison was the next closest with 66 followed by Dirigo with 59. Monmouth was fourth at 58 with St. Dom’s in fifth with 54.

“I thought we could do it,” said Briana Moore, who was the top female athlete in the meet. “If we did what we needed to do, warm up, stretch, go by the rules, do everything we needed, we could do it right.”

After the Lisbon boys’ team lost to Hall-Dale in a meet at Cony High School a week ago, the Greyhounds not only knew that the Bulldogs would be a team to challenge them but also that they’d have to bring their best effort.

“We really wanted to keep the title of ours and keep on winning,” said Reeves. “We were definitely trying hard. We lost some spots, but we picked up in others. It definitely made us run real hard.”

Hall says he used to have a meet late in the season in which he’d put different athletes in different events. It would likely produce a loss and give his athletes a taste of reality. This year, this wasn’t needed, especially with the streak in the line.

“These seniors don’t want to be the one’s to lose,” said Hall. “They’ve lost enough this year. So we didn’t do that. They knew they just needed some pluses, and after a rainy week of practice, they came through.”

Reeves completed the hat trick with a win in the long jump, triple and pole vault. He won the pole vault with an 11-6. The jumping events were a challenge because of the wind. He won the long jump with a 19-08.

“We all had to push through it,” said Reeves. “I just tried my hardest. I knew (Hall-Dale’s) Tyler Fitzgerald was a 20-jumper and I was a 21-jumper. Neither of us got into the 20s. So I just tried my hardest.”

In the triple, he faced a different direction which helped. He won with a 40-02.

“The wind was going the other way,” said Reeves. So I got a good jump. I wasn’t feeling so good for it, but I still got first.”

The Lisbon boys also got wins from Tyler Bard in the 1,600 race walk and Kyle Sheehan in the 300 hurdles. Sheehan was also second in the 110 hurdles.

For the Lisbon girls, Moore won both the shot and discus while Kayla Angelico won the javelin, pole vault and 300 hurdles.

Moore’s wins came after being sent home Thursday from practice for being sick.

“I was questioning what my abilities were,” said Moore. “Then I just put it by me and did what I had to do.”

She won the shot with a distance of 33-0.5 and won the discus with a distance of 92-01. Teammate Allie Bubar finished second.

“I was hoping the shot would be more, but the discus was a PR,” said Moore.

Angelico won the hurdles in 51.22.

“I did a lot better than I usually do,” said Angelico. “So that was a really big step for me. So I was really happy about that.”

She won the javelin with a distance of 103-4, beating teammate Angelica Bulgin. She cleared 6-6 to win the pole vault. Lisbon’s Mia Durgin, Jennifer Smith and Hannah Hall also placed in the pole vault.

“They always come up to me and say that their goal is to beat me,” said Angelico. “I’m like, ‘I want you to try to beat me.'”

The Lisbon girls also got wins from Bulgin in the 800 and Lindsey Whitney in the race walk. Kaitlyn Doustou added a win in the high jump.

“We all wanted seven straight wins,” said Angelico. “So we were all going for it.”

Other locals that became MVC champs included Winthrop’s Kameron Souza in the 800 and teammate Zach Nadeau in the shot. Dirigo’s Bryan Blackman won the 200 and finished second in the 100.

In the girls’ meet, St. Dom’s Marley Byrne won the triple jump and finished second in the 100. Mt. Abram’s Sadie James won the 1,600 and the 3,200.

kmills@sunjournal