Wednesday, May 23, 2012
By Bill Stewart bstewart@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer
AUGUSTA — Hall-Dale junior Bri Crisci and Winthrop senior Karen Rice crossed the finish line, a scorching sun beating down on their shoulders.
FIRST PLACE: Winthrop’s Karen Rice, right, leads Livermore Falls’ Lindsey Jacques in 100-meter preliminary race during the Mountain Valley Conference track and field championships Friday afternoon at Cony High School’s Alumni Field in Augusta.
Staff photo by Joe Phelan
They exchanged smiles and high-fives before walking off the track.
Neither had any idea who had just won the 100-meter dash at the Mountain Valley Conference track and field championship meet Friday at Alumni Field — it was that close.
“It was really tight,” Rice said. “My start, I knew it was bad. I could see Bri ahead of me. I don’t like losing so it lit a fire under my butt. It was really close.”
Rice ultimately won the race in a personal-best time of 12.88. Crisci was second in 13.01, making the race one of the more exciting ones of the competition.
Lisbon swept the event for the sixth consecutive season. The boys won the title with 112.5 points. Winthrop was second with 80, followed by Monmouth (75), Livermore Falls (64), Boothbay (56) and Hall-Dale (55.5).
The Lisbon girls finished with 130.75 points to easily defeat Monmouth (66), Winthrop (62.75), Madison (59.75) and Livermore Falls (55).
Monmouth sophomore Danielle Bumann won the 100 hurdles and the 300 hurdles. She ran the 300 hurdles in 49.13 and the 100 hurdles in 17.44
“The 300 is my favorite,” she said. “I didn’t like it at the beginning of the season, but I like it a lot now.”
And the reasoning?
“It is really, really hard,” she added. “But I love it because it’s more running and hurdling.”
Bumann led a strong Monmouth contingent in the 100 hurdles. Bumann edged out teammates Melissa Brassard and Tiffany Pease as the Mustangs took the top three spots in the event.
“It was a great race,” she said. “It makes it easier when you have teammates chasing you. I hit a few hurdles, but I did OK.”
In the girls 100, Crisci actually had the fastest time in the event — 12.82 — but she ran it in the preliminaries.
“I love the feeling of the finish line,” Crisci said. “It’s just an amazing feeling. I tried to keep my head down, concentrate and just go as fast as I can. It was a great race.”
Crisci went on to win the 200 in 27 seconds, the fastest time she’s run the event this spring.
“It felt really good,” she said. “I was pretty speechless after that. It was a (personal record) and it feels so good to improve.”
Elsewhere Friday, Hall-Dale’s Tyler Fitzgerald won the 100 in 11.34. Winthrop senior Travis Hutchins won the discus with a throw of 138-1. Monmouth senior Kevin Desmond anchored the victorious 4x800 and 4x400 relay teams. He also won the 800 in 2:02.17.
“I didn’t get the time I wanted,” Desmond said, “but I’ll take the win. I was hoping to go under two minutes.”
Madison junior Matt McClintock won the 1,600 and 3,200 races, beating out rival Chase Brown of Boothbay in both races.
“I didn’t get a chance to see him this season,” said McClintock, one of the top distance runners in the state. “He’s just great competition.”
McClintock set the tone for his day when he ran the 1,600 in 4:32.07. Brown needed a late surge to finish on his heels at 4:34.80.
“I wanted to go out and fly,” McClintock said. “I wanted to limit the other contenders with their kicks. My kick has been getting better, but I don’t trust it fully. I don’t trust it in a 100-meter race, so I wanted to take that away.”
Did he ever. McClintock sucked the drama out of the event early, holding a big lead over Brown for much of the race.
“I didn’t want a close race,” McClintock added. “I wanted to take his kick away.”
McClintock finished the 3,200 in 9:53.79 while Brown was second in 10:09.12.
“It set the tone for the state meet,” McClintock said.
Morgan Reeves led the Lisbon boys, winning the triple jump (40-8), long jump (20-3) and pole vault (12-0).
Briana Moore won the shot put (33-5) and discus (88-6) to lead the Lisbon girls.
Bill Stewart — 621-5640
bstewart@centralmaine.com
Copyright ©2012 MaineToday Media, Inc.
Jobs
Cars
Real Estate
Deals
Maine Yellow Pages
Further Discussion
Here at PressHerald.com we value our readers and are committed to growing our community by encouraging you to add to the discussion. To ensure conscientious dialogue we have implemented a strict no-bullying policy. To participate, you must follow our Terms of Use.Questions about the article? Add them below and we’ll try to answer them or do a follow-up post as soon as we can. Technical problems? Email them to us with an exact description of the problem. Make sure to include: