DOVER-FOXCROFT, Maine — Jake Koffman wasn’t showing off when he tossed a shot put more than 45 feet during Saturday’s Penobscot Valley Conference small-school track and field championships with what normally is his non-throwing arm.
The 6-foot-3, 230-pound junior merely turned left-hander for a few moments to help Orono High School win the boys’ team title — and his best effort of 45-4½ turned out to be good enough to win the event during the daylong competition at Foxcroft Academy.
“I’m kind of doing it to help out the team,” said Koffman, who is better known as among the best high school discus throwers in state history. “Our coach (Chris Libby) scores out every meet and it was somewhat close between us and Caribou so we just figured if I could get the points it wouldn’t hurt me in any other events and I have events to spare so I might as well go out and try it.”
Koffman suffered an injury to his right wrist before the start of track season, Libby said, and while it doesn’t affect his performance in the discus and javelin it prevents him from throwing the shot put right-handed.
So he tried throwing it left-handed one day.
“I wondered how far I could throw it so I picked it up with my left hand and just used my legs and jumped into it and let it go,” said Koffman, who won the PVC shot-put crown right-handed in 2015 with a best of 50-8¾ and went on to place third at the Class C state meet with a toss of 52-3½.
Koffman did compete in the shot put left-handed at one regular-season meet earlier this spring but admits he hasn’t devoted much time to developing the off-armed delivery.
“To be honest I didn’t practice at all,” he said. “I did it at one practice, took about 10 throws, got the feeling down and just went with it. The difficulty is if I really want to get better with my left hand then I have to practice it a lot and it really doesn’t make sense for me to spend time during practice on something like that.”
Koffman, who swept all three throwing events at the PVC small-school meet for the second straight year, is more focused on shattering the discus state record, which can be done only at a state championship meet.
Scott Mason of Lawrence High of Fairfield set the current state all-classes mark of 177-8 in 1980, the same year Justin Whitney of Winthrop established the current Class C standard of 169-1.
Koffman, the 2015 Class C state champion in the discus with a best of 137-9, bettered Mason’s record while breaking his own PVC mark by more than 17 feet with a best of 179-6 on his second attempt of the finals Saturday.
The effort — made right-handed — was exactly 53 feet farther than his nearest competitor.
Koffman threw a personal best of 186-3 two weeks ago during a meet in Old Town, and he’s looking forward to his return to the throwing circle at Foxcroft Academy, site of next Saturday’s Class C state meet.
“Personally I love this circle, it’s just the right speed for me,” said Koffman. “I don’t feel like I’m slipping, I don’t feel like it’s too slow. Actually my best throw sophomore year came at this ring, and my freshman year I had my second-best throw here.”
Koffman said he’s been motivated in part by the increasing distances being achieved by other high school throwers around the state, including record-setting shot putter Dan Guiliani of South Portland.
“If you look at the trend the last couple of years, you’ll see that people in Maine are redefining what’s possible,” said Koffman, who also plays soccer and basketball at Orono. “You see someone else do something and you say, ‘I can do that.’ Then you just keep working harder and harder.”
