Hosting a state track meet is a dream a decade in the making for Bangor
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Bangor’s Cameron Stadium will host the Course A state championship keep track of and industry meet Saturday for the very first time in much more than two decades.
And as much as athletes from the state’s biggest significant colleges are on the lookout forward to tests by themselves on the new eight-lane track and adjacent discipline-occasion regions, the fastest individual in the stadium may not be a single of the individuals.
That honor may perhaps go to longtime Bangor Higher Faculty athletic administrator Steve Vanidestine, who is billed with monitoring the occasion to troubleshoot and make certain that very little that would preclude a sleek-working satisfy has been neglected.
“I’ll be like a chicken with my head lower off running close to examining every little thing at to start with, but ideally I’ll be in a position to rest and observe [the meet],” he explained.
The Class A event is one particular of three point out observe championship satisfies to be held close to the state beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday, with the Class B opposition established for Mount Desert Island Superior University in Bar Harbor and the Course C athletes to convene at Lewiston Significant School.
Bangor’s Cameron Stadium was a standard host of state-amount interscholastic observe satisfies for lots of several years right after its grandstand was constructed in 1944.
But as the many years went by the facility’s observe and grandstand began to deteriorate, and by the late ’90s the current 6-lane observe was not appropriate for regional and state competitiveness.
A system to renovate the stadium was introduced in 2010, and in the course of the future 10 years a a few-phase, $5 million job highlighted the substitution of the major grandstand and the installation of a condition-of-of-the-artwork eight-lane monitor and an synthetic-turf area and construction of on-web page locker place facilities.
The freshly finished Cameron Stadium started hosting gatherings on the turf final tumble and topped its initially state winner in November, when Foxcroft Academy of Dover-Foxcroft edged Winthrop/Monmouth Academy/Hall-Dale 19-16 to earn the Course D football title.
Bangor’s request to host the 2022 Class A keep track of and discipline point out championships as a capstone to the inaugural year of the new Cameron Stadium was accredited by the Maine Principals’ Association, leaving Vanidestine to lead the effort to make guaranteed the stadium was prepared to host that event this spring.
1 significant step came last Saturday when Cameron Stadium hosted the Penobscot Valley Convention substantial-school observe championships, a satisfy that doubled as a costume rehearsal of kinds for Bangor’s work to host the state meet up with a 7 days later.
“It was important, since when we questioned the MPA to consider us as a web-site for the Course A condition observe championship, we also questioned the PVC if we could host that meet mainly because it would be a great prospect for us to have a trial run with a significant meet up with,” Vanidestine stated.
“There have been many items that we took notice of and improved, and we’ll regularly test to keep earning factors improved as we go.”
Bangor Significant School is the defending Class A women out of doors track champion as perfectly as the two-time reigning Class A indoor keep track of point out champion, and mentor Alan Mosca’s girls squad looms as just one of the title favorites again this yr.
One particular of Bangor’s primary new challengers each indoors and outside has been Gorham, and Saturday’s title hunt is anticipated to be a different fight among the two like-nicknamed Rams.
Bangor is led by junior sprinter Anna Connors, who established a condition history though successful the 200 at past year’s point out meet with a time of 24.51 seconds. She also eclipsed the outdated condition mark with a time of 12.11 seconds in the 100 even though ending second in that party to Victoria Bossong of Cheverus Significant University in Portland, who was timed in 11.81.
Connors positioned next in the 400 at the 2021 point out meet guiding Bossong — now working at Harvard — and she’ll be a single of the favorites in all three sprints this calendar year as she is ranked initial in the 400 and next in both the 100 and 200 behind Gorham senior Emma Inexperienced.
Bangor also features a major length runner in senior Megan Randall, even though Gorham’s stage manufacturing will be aided by senior Alyvia Caruso, the leading seed in the triple soar and extensive leap and next in the 100 hurdles.
Two-time defending state champion Scarborough is favored to retain the Class A boys title, led by senior Jayden Flaker, prime-seeded in the 110 hurdles as perfectly as the anchor of the Purple Storm’s No. 1-seeded 4×100 relay team. Flaker also is ranked second in the 300 hurdles and is part of a third-seeded 4×400 relay tandem.
The boys’ fulfill also may possibly feature an assault on state records for the 100-meter sprint. Flaker holds the in general state mark at 10.71 seconds, but he will not be in the area that will be vying for the Class A condition-satisfy file of 10.80 seconds established a 12 months back by Aidan Walcott of Bonny Eagle Higher College in Standish.
Walcott is the major-seeded runner in this year’s condition industry right after working a 10.73 at last weekend’s Southwestern Maine Functions Association championships held at Falmouth Superior Faculty.
He’ll be challenged by Gorham’s Andrew Farr, who ran a 10.74 in the exact race, and Frank Morang of Cheverus Large College in Portland, who concluded third in 10.83.
No matter if any of the 3 will be able to greatest either file at Cameron Stadium continues to be to be seen, in part mainly because Vanidestine expects no matter what wind that develops by race time for the boys 100-meter remaining at 12:45 p.m. to be coming from the south, which usually means the sprinters could be running into a headwind.
But whether condition data are damaged or not this weekend, Vanidestine sees the prospect to host Saturday’s Course A meet up with is an chance a decade in the generating and just a single of quite a few employs for a stadium developed to accommodate multiple sports activities as perfectly as other, considerably less aggressive takes advantage of.
“To see the children competing on that track and be very pleased of their facility has meant anything,” he said, “and even in the off several hours you’ll see persons from the community park in the great deal on Mount Hope [Avenue] and walk down and wander or do their runs.
“This is seriously excellent for the group — specially for the college-age young children — but it’s also a terrific option for the metropolis to host events like this and we’re grateful for that option.”
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