AUGUSTA — The only drama Saturday at Cony High School came from the weather. There was no suspense when it came to deciding the Class C track and field team championship.
The day didn’t unfold exactly the way Orono Coach Ryan Libby expected, with cold and rainy conditions, but his Red Riots easily swept their way to boys’ and girls’ state titles.
Orono routed the field from start to finish on the boys’ side, racking up 106 points to runner-up Lisbon’s 69. The Orono girls turned a tight meet with North Yarmouth Academy into a comfortable win with a late surge, scoring 115 points to capture their eighth state championship since 2012. Bucksport (71) overtook NYA (66) for second place.
Maine Central Institute’s Emma Burr concluded an outstanding season with three wins, two of which resulted in state records. The senior set Class C marks in 100-meter hurdles (14.77 seconds) and 300 hurdles (44.82). She also won the 200 dash in 25.51.
Burr displayed great resolve in the 300 hurdles and 200 after suffering a hamstring spasm at the start of the 100 final. She attributed her spasm, which caused her to drop out of that race, to the cold weather.
“Right after the (100) hurdles, I told myself, ‘I’m all good; I don’t need to stretch,’ but I definitely needed to stretch,” Burr said. “After that, I mostly was just thinking, ‘You can’t change the past, so you just have to take it out of your head.’ … I’m proud of myself; I’m not at all disappointed.”
For the Orono girls, Ruth White won the 3,200 in 10:44.75, beating George Stevens Academy’s Thea Crowley (11:18.68). White, a junior, broke her own Class C record of 10:46.38, set last year.
Maya Boyington (race walk, 7:50.80) and Dez Seeley (shot put, 32 feet, 2 1/4 inches) also claimed individual wins for the Red Riots. The team of White, Katherine Kohtala, Rossella Ruzzetta and Ellie Brooks won the 3,200 relay in 10:59.21.
On the boys’ side, Will Francis claimed wins for Orono in the 110 hurdles (15.46, beating teammate Owen Conner Self by 0.01 seconds) and long jump (20-0 1 /2). Alex Maheu cleared 12 feet to win the pole vault.
The bad weather caused officials to suspend the meet after prelims for the girls’ 100 hurdles, boys’ 110 hurdles and both 100 dashes. Athletes and coaches were told to go to their respective buses.
“It was hard, but we just had to do what we could and make the best of it,” said Winslow’s Allie Kimball. “For our team, we just tried to have fun with it and chilled together on the bus. It was just one of those go-with-the-flow kind of things.”
Eventually, the competition resumed. Kimball won the 400 with a time of 1:01.09. She ran a neck-and-neck race with Kayla Cooper (1:01.50), beating out the Lisbon senior by just a few steps.
“I could feel her right there,” Kimball said. “We knew it was going to be a close race because our (seeded) times were very close, and we were pretty much right there the whole way. It was really a mind game of who was going to win.”
Winslow’s Joey Richards (51.61) then breezed to a win over Isaac Keresey of MCI (53.32) in the boys’ 400. The Winslow boys also won the 3,200 relay, as Richards, Braden Rioux, Ethan Rancourt and Justin Rogers finished in 8:48.46.
James Cognata set a Class C record for the Winthrop boys, winning the 800 in 1:56.62. Carter Butterfield won the race walk in 7:44.91 for Mt. Abram, and Reagan Lockaby cleared 5-10 for the Roadrunners to claim victory in the high jump.
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