WATERBORO — Evan Michaud helped Caribou get to the top of the standings early in the Class C track and field meet Saturday when he won the pole vault, with teammate Cory Jandreau finishing second, both with heights of 12 feet.

Five hours later, Michaud finished off Caribou’s first boys’ track title when he ran the anchor leg of the third-place 1,600-meter relay – fast enough to hold off Wells and Traip Academy, the teams that finished first and second in the race and second and third in the overall standings.

“We saw the points going into the final race and just said, ‘don’t do anything stupid and we’ll be OK,’ ” Michaud said. “And then we improved our time by quite a bit.”

Caribou finished with 57 points, followed closely by Wells (54) and Traip (50). Orono was fourth with 43 points and Mountain Valley placed fifth with 37.

In the girls’ meet, champion Maranacook (103) and Orono (92.5) racked up points with individual standouts and plenty of supporting athletes. Maranacook’s girls, like the Caribou boys, had a 1-2 pole vault finish, from Nicole D’Angelo and Janika Pakulski. D’Angelo also won the shot put.

It was Maranacook’s first girls’ title since 1993.

“We were hunting for this,” D’Angelo said. “Quite a few girls came up in the seeds. I was supposed to win the shot put and the pole vault, and I did that.”

Monmouth Academy finished third in the girls’ meet with 64 points and led for much of the day after picking up early victories from Maddie Amero in the javelin and Moira Burgess in the 1,600 racewalk (by .1 second over Emily White of Spruce Mountain).

Cayden Spencer-Thompson of Mattanawcook Academy went 23 feet, 13/4 inches on his fourth long jump to set the day’s only meet record, breaking the mark of 22-8 3/4 set by Ricky Thompson of Maine Central Institute in 1977.

Spencer-Thompson also won the triple jump by more than 4 feet, traveling 46-5. Earlier this season, he broke his own all-state best with a jump of 48-2 1/2 after jumping 48-10 1/4 at indoor nationals. He jumped 23-10 1/4 in the long jump indoors.

“I was really pushing for that long jump record and I got it, but I sacrificed some triple jump because of it,” Spencer-Thompson said.

The race of the day was the boys’ 800, where an expected duel between rivals from southern York County lived up to the billing.

Mitchell Libby of Wells beat Dalan Hubbard of Traip Academy by six-hundredths of a second with a time of 1:59.41. Hubbard began a kick with 200 meters to go and reached Libby’s shoulder coming off the final turn.

“All last year, all this year, it’s just neck and neck every time,” Libby said. “I just tried to not look back and keep right up, but he’s a trooper. He almost passed me right at the last second. I think that’s the closest race we’ve ever had.”

“I love racing against him,” Hubbard said. “I always look forward to it. I thought I had him until the last 5 or 10 (meters).”

Libby came back to win the 3,200 and then anchor Wells’ 1,600 relay victory. Brian Niznik of Wells won the 400 and teammate Griffin Allaire captured the 1,600.

Jacob Gagner of Traip Academy was a double winner in the 100 dash and 300 hurdles.

In the 100, Gagner held off hard-charging Darin Libby of Madison/Carrabec. Then, he pulled away from the 110 hurdles champ, Matthew Chapman of Wiscasset, to win the 300 hurdles.

“It definitely helps me to have someone right in the corner of my vision just to give me that push,” Gagner said

Camille Kohtala of Orono won the girls’ 200 and 400. In the 400, she came from behind with a powerful sprint to track down top-seeded Molly McGrail of Maranacook, winning in 58.57 seconds – just one-tenth off the meet record.

“She definitely surprised me, but congrats to her, that was so awesome. She shaved off three seconds off her outdoor track time, which in sprinting is incredibly hard to do,” McGrail said.

McGrail came back to win the 800.

Olivia Reynolds won the 1,600 and 3,200. Reynolds, a freshman at Maine Coast Waldorf school who competes for the co-operative North Yarmouth Academy/MCW squad, was hardly winded after completing the metric mile in 5 minutes, 14 seconds, winning by 23 seconds. Her time in the 3,200 was 12:33.67.

Other highlights of the meet included Lauren Sterling of Mountain Valley winning the girls’ 100 hurdles for a third straight year; Chenille Eccleston of Wells breaking 13 seconds for the first time to win the girls’ 100 (12.98); Evan Desmond of Caribou, the third seed, chopping 37 seconds off his season-best time to win the boys’ racewalk in 7:07.66; and Bangor Christian senior Austin Keib’s shot put (personal record of 49-1) and discus victories.

Steve Craig can be reached at 791-6413 or:

scraig@pressherald.com

Twitter: SteveCCraig

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