BAR HARBOR — They were not his best throws of the season but — as has often been the case — they were good enough as Waterville Senior High School’s Trever Gray repeated as the Class B champ in the shot put and discus Saturday at Mount Desert Island High School.
While it was not the 165-footer he uncorked at the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class B championships last week in Bath, it was nonetheless an impressive 163-foot, 8-inch heave that gave Gray the win in the discus by more than 20 feet. Prior to his performance in the discus, Gray took the shot put by a little more than one foot with a distance of 49-6 3/4.
“It was really important for me (to repeat as state champ) because there was a lot of good competition coming into (Saturday),” Gray said. “(Lawrence High School senior) Kyle Robinson had me going in shot. It’s a lot of good competition pushing me. It really does mean a lot to close it out with a win.”
Gray’s performance played a key part in helping the Purple Panthers secure third place with 58 points. Hunter Smith had two firsts and two seconds to help lead Foxcroft Academy to the title with 71 points, seven clear of second place York High School.
In the girls meet, Charlotte Reilly, Laura Kenealy, Audrey Grimes and Morgan Smith turned in a winning performance in the final event, the 4×800 relay, to help the Wildcats become the first team other than Waterville to win a Class B championship in a decade.
York finished the meet with 68 points while Belfast was second with 60 and Greely third with 57. Waterville, which had won the previous nine state titles, finished in 15th. Lawrence was the top local team and finished tied for sixth with Kennebunk.
“It’s a little bit disappointing, I guess, but it’s understandable,” Waterville senior Lauren Brown said. “We have a pretty young team at the moment. I think it’s all right.”
While Gray was unchallenged in the discus, he had to come from behind to win the shot after fouling on two of his three attempts in the preliminary round. Gray made his 49-foot throw early in the finals, but still had to sweat it out as Robinson — who placed second with a distance of 48-5 1/4, a new personal best by 4 feet, 6 1/2 inches — finished out his throws.
“It’s always good competition with Trever,” said Robinson, who also finished second in the discus. “I’ve gone against him at a bunch of meets this year and every time he’s come out on top, but we’ve had a couple close ones like in shot (Saturday).”
Gray was not the only one to repeat as a state champ this season, though, as Erskine’s Kaylee Porter led wire to wire to capture her second straight title in the girls 800 with a time of 2:18.11.
“I had an adrenaline rush through most of it so when I was running I just kind of focused on what is important to me,” Porter said, “which is running for people who I know who can’t run and really want to run.”
A sophomore, Porter said she drew inspiration for the race from reading an article a few weeks back about Kayla Montgomery, a Winston-Salem, North Carolina native with multiple sclerosis that competes on the Lipscomb University cross country and track teams.
“If she can run, I can run,” Porter said.
Winslow sophomore Jake Warn, meanwhile, drew inspiration from personal adversity he has dealt with and won the triple jump with a distance of 42-7. Warn had his knee surgically repaired last summer and spent the fall and winter rehabbing.
“I had some rough injuries over the winter but I kept training to get back where I was,” said Warn, who was also third in the long jump and fifth in both the 100 and 200. “It felt pretty good to get a reward like that.”
Hard work also paid off for Mount View’s Jenni Nadeau. The senior had always been competitive in the girls javelin at the state meet, but Saturday she led the event — one of the day’s first to be contested — nearly throughout.
She heaved a 112-footer in prelims and added the eventual top mark, a 113-3 toss, in the finals to top York’s Reilly Smedley (106-6).
“I know that I prepared for this moment so I’m just really excited that it turned out in my favor,” Nadeau said. “…That (112-foot) throw just kind of validated that I was ready for this meet and I didn’t take anything for granted. I knew these girls wanted to win so I just didn’t count my win until all the throws were done.”
A state record also went down Saturday, as Belfast’s Drew Nealy cleared 14-7 in the pole vault to break the previous mark of 14-6 3/4 set by Ryan Werner, of Scarborough High School, in 1991.
Evan Crawley – 621-5640
ecrawley@mainetoday.com
Twitter:@Evan_Crawley
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