ORONO, Maine — The high school track and field season is young, but a few things became clear at a four-way Eastern Maine Indoor Track League Tuesday night.
The Bangor girls and boys have a chance to be special. Old Town’s girls have the talent to contend for an EMITL championship. Ben Sinclair and Katie DeShane are two of the top individuals in the league.
Bangor senior Sinclair and Old Town junior DeShane each racked up three individual victories while the Rams’ boys and girls swept the team competitions at the University of Maine field house.
The Bangor girls tabulated 86 points, followed by Old Town’s 41, Brewer’s 39 and Orono’s 37 while the Bangor boys compiled 78, with Brewer tallying 69, Old Town 39 and Orono 22.
The Rams’ sprinting tandem of Sinclair and Lonnie Hackett proved that it is just as good as advertised, as the two went 1-2 in both races they ran together, the 55 and 200 dashes.
Sinclair, known to his teammates as “Speed,” earned that distinction by putting down times of 6.85 seconds in the 55 and 23.56 in the 200 in addition to his 52.37 in the 400 while Hackett ran 6.89 in the 55 and 23.78 in the 200.
“He’s a teammate, a competitor, he’s always there right beside me, we help each other,” said Sinclair, the defending Class A state champion in the 55 and 200.
“It’s easy to click like that.”
It’s easier to do so when you’ve been competing against each other for the last three winters and were teammates on the football field this fall.
“He’s been an excellent addition, he has great chemistry with all the kids it seems,” Bangor coach Jaime Cooke said of Sinclair. “It seems like he’s been here all four years of high school, it’s wonderful.”
Bangor’s only other individual victors were Josiah Hartley, who cleared 5 feet, 10 inches in the high jump and Alex McDade’s 39-8.50 effort in the shot put, but the Rams took at least one place in every event, showing depth to back the talent of Sinclair and Hackett.
“We have a great group of guys stepping up and coming right behind them, so those guys are kind of driving the other guys to get better,” Cooke said.
Brewer senior Steven Rice showed he’ll be one of the favorites in Class A in the hurdles this winter, easily winning that race in 8.14 seconds while the Witches fielded three other individual winners in Brian Carr’s 2 minute, 7.76 run in the 800, Josh Stone’s 18-10.75 mark in the long jump and Tristan Wortman’s 11-foot show-ing in the pole vault.
Phil Benoit of Orono won the mile in 5:02.25 while Old Town’s Dan Gastia popped a 38-11.50 to win the triple jump.
In the girls’ competition, Old Town’s DeShane showed she’ll be one of the favorites for the EMITL’s top performer award this winter, as she not only won three events (55 dash, 200, high jump), but captured them convincingly.
DeShane was timed in 7.74 and 27.96 in winning the 55 and 200, and cleared 5-2 in the high jump, while barely missing three attempts at 5-4.
“I felt pretty good about it,” she said. “I really thought I was going to get it that second time, but hopefully next time I will.”
There are a couple interesting connections between DeShane and Bangor freshman Grace Maclean, who finished second in the high jump and 200, one being that they’re two of the state’s top soccer players.
“I did gymnastics with her, actually,” DeShane said.
DeShane has already cleared 5-3 this winter in the high jump, an Old Town school record, and has her sights on the EMITL record of 5-5 held by Bangor’s Kim Hamm.
DeShane is also smiling a lot more this winter than last, as she was hampered by a knee injury last season that kept her from the high jump.
“It really killed me last year having to watch everybody else jump and I couldn’t jump last year because I had a hurt knee and everything,” she said.
DeShane and Bangor’s Rachel Huber (800 and 2 mile runs) were the lone multiple event winners in the girls’ meet, while Orono, which fields only 16 kids, got wins from Alex Crocker in the 400 and Holli Kenison in the long jump, showing that the Red Riots aren’t short on talent.
“We have 16 kids that run their tail off every single day at practice, and they agree to the training regime,” coach Chris Libby said. “Despite not having big numbers, every athlete on this Orono team embodies everything a coach would want out of a track and field athlete.”
Other individual winners included Anna Hayden of Bangor in the pole vault, Kayla Brooks of Old Town in the triple jump and Bangor’s Erin Nichols in the shot put.
