LISBON — Lisbon High School track and field has dominated the Mountain Valley Conference for so long that when the Greyhounds began their streak of nine consecutive clean sweeps, Monmouth Academy was a second-year expansion team.

A decade later, the Mustangs have more than doubled in size and have accomplished what other league rivals found impossible — crashing that championship party. On Lisbon’s brand-new home track at Thompson Field, at that.

Monmouth’s wire-to-wire victory in the 4×400 meter relay capped a come-from-behind win for the girls’ championship Tuesday afternoon.

The win by Madi Bumann, Shayna Frost, Emily Grandahl and Ashleigh Hartford provided a two-point swing over second-place Lisbon. Final score: Mustangs 133, Greyhounds 132.5.

“That’s an eyelash. That’s a quarter-inch in the shot put. That’s an inch in the triple jump. That’s a tenth of a second in one of the races,” Monmouth co-coach Tom Menendez said.

Lisbon lapped the field and then some on the boys’ side, winning for the 10th consecutive year with a windfall of 216 points that nearly tripled runner-up Madison’s 77.5.

“Nothing to sneeze at there,” Lisbon coach Dean Hall said. “I know the girls are disappointed, but those things have to come to an end and you have to say let’s start a new streak.”

Trailing by double digits with only the discus, triple jump and 4×400 remaining, Monmouth got a piggyback ride from three freshmen.

Mahala Hayden finished fourth in discus, good for four points in an event that saw the Greyhounds kept off the board. Then, in triple jump, Grandahl went more a foot beyond her seeded distance to 31 feet, 7 inches on her second attempt.

Grandahl’s third-place effort, coupled with fellow freshman Maddie Amero’s sixth, offset fourth-place points for Lisbon to set the stage for the dramatic relay.

“I knew I didn’t want to tire myself out. I knew Morgan Crocker of Boothbay and the Wiscasset girl (Ayanna Main) were tough competition,” Grandahl said. “I wanted to get some good jumps in, but I wanted to have enough energy for the 4×4.”

Bumann’s blistering first lap gave Monmouth a 20-meter lead. Frost doubled that cushion on her loop, and a late rally by Mikayla Yanez and Bree Sautter wasn’t enough to overcome it.

Monmouth won the race by 11 seconds, and its time of 4:27.21 was more than four seconds quicker than its previous seasonal best.

“We had the kids in the right spots. They just had to perform, and they did,” Monmouth co-coach Norm Thombs said. “The freshmen have done a lot of growing up. If you’d interviewed us in April … But they’ve grown up a lot as athletes.”

One of those ninth-graders, Abby Allen, won the high jump, an event in which Lisbon didn’t have a finalist.

Amero (100 feet, 2 inches), Allen and Hayden went 1-2-4 in javelin, again without a Greyhound in the scoring column.

“Monmouth did exactly what they had to do coming into this meet. We knew early this season that they were the team to beat,” Hall said. “We didn’t see them until Cony Invitational, and we beat them there, but we got help from other people.”

The Mustangs picked up a point here, two points there, all afternoon.

Things were close when the meet was halted last Thursday at Cony High School due to thunderstorms. It was postponed again Monday and resumed with the 1,600, where in a sign of things to come, cross country veterans Carey Knowles and Jordyn Mann finished fourth and seventh, respectively.

“We started getting nervous with the 4x8s on Thursday night, because we knew everything was going to be important,” Menendez said. “It came down to the kids just stepping it up. Carey had a sub-six minutes, and she hasn’t broken six minutes in her life.”

Later, Knowles passed top-seeded Ella Brown of St. Dom’s on the next-to-last lap and finished a surprising second to another Saints runner, Sydney Sirois, in the 3,200. Mann was sixth.

“I was really ready to run at Cony. It kept getting postponed and that kept making me more nervous, but today was good. I liked the (cooler) weather,” Knowles said. “We’ve had more practices that were easy, so I was at my peak today.”

Lisbon had four of the seven scorers in pole vault but couldn’t fully cash in, with Monica Ouellette of Madison springing the upset win.

On the flip side, the Greyhounds caught a break when Crocker — voted most outstanding female athlete of the meet — tripped over the final hurdle to hand Chase Collier a victory in the 300.

“You can’t go picking one place, because this a team sport,” Hall said. “I did that in 2009 with the state meet against NYA. I still wake up in the middle of the night screaming about that.”

Sautter won the 400 and 800 after sharing the 4×800 victory with Mikayla Yanez, Sydney Douglas and Emma Houle on Thursday. In the 800, Frost was second and Sammy Grandahl fourth for the Mustangs.

Collier also won the 100 and was second in the 100 hurdles and long jump.

Emily Billings of Mountain Valley edged Houle by three-hundredths of a second in the 200.

Lisbon won 11 of 19 boys’ events.

Andrew Golino prevailed in shot put and discus. Austin Bedford bagged the 800 and pole vault before sharing in a 4×400 victory. Charles Adams swept the hurdles. Nick Harriman ruled the 1,600 and chased teammate Jordan Cole across the line in the two-mile. The Greyhounds also won the 4×100 Tuesday and put Jeff Willey’s racewalk triumph in the bank last week.

“We were one-two in the 800, first in 1,600, one-two in 3,200. That’s not going to happen at the state meet,” Hall, whose team is defending Class C champion, said.

Drew Gamage of Oak Hill was voted most outstanding male athlete. He won the high jump and triple jump and was second to Kyle Farrar of Mountain Valley in long jump. Those 28 points from the Raiders’ one-man team were more than five schools.

Farrar won the 100 prior to the delay. He also was third Tuesday in the 200 and 4×100.

Maverik Griffin of Telstar topped the 400, while Logan Boyce of Mt. Abram took home javelin gold.

koakes@sunjournal.com

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