Over the course of the swimming season it became more and more evident that it was going to be really difficult to beat out the Cheverus High School boys swim team come time for the state finals.
That theory held true on Wednesday, when the Stags captured its third straight Class A swimming championship with an overwhelming 360 points. Brunswick and Bangor finished second and third, respectively, totaling 260 and 257 points in the same order, while Falmouth (202) and Windham (161) rounded out the top five.
“We’ve been blessed with a bunch of good kids, talented kids,” Cheverus head coach Kevin Haley said at the conclusion of the meet. “It really takes a total team effort for this to get done. Brunswick’s a very talented team, tough team, and so is Bangor. It’s nice that we’ve been doing so well and our program seems to be sustainable year after year.”
“They did better than we could have expected,” Brunswick head coach David Bright said about his team’s overall performance. “When you look at all the individual swims and best times, they did a terrific job.”
Once again it boiled down to the last relay of the day to determine the place holders, specifically between Bangor and Brunswick. After a tough disqualification on the Dragons side late in the meet, the Rams trailed by only one point going into the 400-yard freestyle relay. However, a 3:21.48 finish for Brunswick in the second slot was enough to beat Bangor’s time of 3:25.01 and solidify the final standings.
“We knew Cheverus was going to run away with it,” Rams head coach Phil Emery said. “We knew Brunswick was ahead of us and maybe we could sneak up on them.”
Stand-out swimmer for Lewiston High School Mathew Charest placed second in the 200-yard IM, finishing in 1:59.31, under two seconds away from Cheverus swimmer Kevin Kane (1:57.66).
Charest also took home a fourth-place finish in the 100- yard breaststroke, completing the event in 1:01.46, just .66 seconds behind Bangor’s Liam Reading, who captured second place with a 1:00.78. Rams freshman Colby Prouty locked in a 59.57 time to take home the gold.
Dragon Nate Samson experience a joyful, yet somewhat frustrating moment in the 100-yard freestyle, completing the event in a speedy 46.64 seconds. The time was fast enough to break the original meet record of 47 seconds set by former Windham High School swimmer Nick Sundquist in 2013. However, Samson was .04 seconds short of tying the state record of 46.60 seconds set by former Morse High School standout James Wells.
“It was a little frustrating I guess,” Samson said of his near-miss record-breaker. “I swam with James when I was little and I knew how fast he was and everything. It’s exciting that I have next year to try and come back and try to get it.”
“This is something that hasn’t always been easy for him,” Bright said of Samson. “He had a pretty bad injury over the summer, he broke his foot and was on crutches for eight weeks. While most people were starting to go into heavy training, he was stuck. He had to work extra hard to come back to where he was. I think that got him really motivated.”
Other notable finishes included two gold-medal finishes from Falmouth’s Jake Perron, who took home Performer of the Meet. He finished with a 1:41.32 time in the 200-yard freestyle, as well as a 4:38.71 in the 500- yard freestyle.
Westbrook’s Greg Violette also took home two gold medals, coming in first in both the 100-yard butterfly (52.01) and the 100-yard backstroke. Kyle Adams of Bangor totaled a whopping 396.25 points in the 1-meter diving event, with Brunswick’s Seth White taking home fourth with 276.25 points.
Just a day ago the Cony High School girls squad captured the Outstanding Sportsmanship award, while the Cony boys matched that honor on Wednesday.
Mt. Ararat’s Devin Hoskins received a top-16 finish, placing 12th in the 200 IM with a 2:22.92 finish. He also finished with a 1:12.02 time in the 100 breast. Noah Brillant placed eighth in the 1-meter diving portion with 238.3 points.
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