Lisbon, Monmouth earn MVC track and field titles

Mountain Valley’s Lauren Sterling, right, is first over the hurdle and was first to cross the finish line setting an MVC record in the 110 meter hurdles during Thursday’s MVC Championships in Lisbon. From left to right are Destiny Deschaines, Lisbon, Emily Grandahl, Monmouth, Ayanna Stover, Wiscasset and Sterling.(Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

LISBON — Lauren Sterling of Mountain Valley woke up on her birthday — Thursday — at 4 a.m. Race days always get her excited, but her season-long chase of the Mountain Valley Conference 100-meter hurdle record of 15.94 was coming to an end and the MVC championships was her second-to-last chance to break it.

“On the starting line I could feel my heart in my chest,” Sterling said. “I know other people want to beat me, that’s their goal. I didn’t know how my time would be at the finish because it felt like an average race but when it clocked the time, it felt super cocky, but I couldn’t hold it in.”

Sterling ran 15.90 and broke the record. She also earned a second-place finish in the 100-meter dash and in the high jump.

Sterling’s stellar performance earned her athlete-of-the-meet honors, but was not enough to help her team take down the Monmouth girls’ team, which scored 228 points, 155 points more than second-place Lisbon.

“The expectation for the girls was to win it,” Monmouth coach Tom Menendez said. “We came in really strong and I told them last night that 100 points would win it.”

The Monmouth girls opened the meet with wins in the 4×800-meter relay and the 1,600-meter racewalk by Moira Burgess, and later had sisters Kaitlin and Abbie Hunt finish first and second in the 1,600- and 3,200-meter runs.

“It is competitive,” Kaitlin Hunt said. “But at the same time I know whoever wins I’ll be happy with it because she’s like my best friend.”

Monmouth found strength in numbers.

“We take them, we develop them, and when they’re seniors they’re scoring on the top of the podium,” Menendez said. “We have a good culture in terms of track.

Monmouth finished first and second in the 300-meter hurdles, first through fourth in the discus and javelin, and first through third in the 3,200-meter run that capped off a strong day.

Hannah St. Pierre of Spruce Mountain was victorious in the long jump (15-10.5) and triple jump (32-9.25). Lisbon’s Sydney Douglass won the 800 (2:39.49) and also was third in the pole vault (7-00) and fourth in the racewalk (8:44.66).

On the boys’ side, Lisbon took over and held the lead from start to finish. Scoring 118.5 points, the Greyhounds beat second-place Hall-Dale by 34 to earn their 13th consecutive MVC title.

Lisbon also opened the meet with a win in the racewalk by Alan Lavoie. Head coach Dean Hall attributed his win to athletes bettering their seed times and making up points in different areas — like Adrian Blake finishing in sixth place in the 400 from the second-fastest heat.

“They’re going to do what they do, or not going to do,” Hall said. “If that door closes then you got knocked out of something, so go on to your next event. But if the door opens because they may have faulted, walk in. That’s what we have been teaching since the beginning of the season. This is a baker’s dozen for the boys. I won’t know how this feels until later on when I look at the results, but I keep thinking of all the pluses we had.”

Lisbon got two wins from David Schlotterbeck in the 1,600 and 3,200, with a second-place finish in the 800 in between. In the 800, runners were close to 100 meters into the race when a Boothbay runner fell, which forced restart. This threw Schlotterbeck off his rhythm.

“You are always hyped up for a race so when they restart it like that, it really throws you off,” Schlotterbeck said. “I was pretty tired after the 800 so I was going for place, not really a PR (in the 3,200). So I just sat behind the fastest runner, and in the end I did get a PR by about 15 seconds (10:36.21).

Hall-Dale finished in second place in the boys’ team event, in part because of Matt Albert earning victories in the javelin (155-08) and in the long jump (20-2.75).

Monmouth’s Moira Burgess left, pulls away from Spruce Mountain’s Emily White in the final stretch of Thursday’s 1600 race walk at the MVC Championships in Lisbon. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Monmouth’s Ethan Thombs, right, catches and prepares to pass Boothbay’s Graham Harris on the backstretch to propel his team to victory in the 4×800 race at Thursday’s MVC Championships in Lisbon. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Lisbon’s Alan Lavoie pulls away from the field en route to victory in Thursday’s 1600 meter race walk at the MVC Championships in Lisbon. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)