State meet week. The part of the calendar where every parent suddenly owns a stadium blanket, every coach pretends they slept, and every kid who has been chasing a number since March either gets it or doesn't. The forecast says Maine in early June, which means it will be 78 and sunny, or it will be 44 with sideways rain, and there is no in-between and no warning. Pack both jackets.
The signal under all the noise is loud, though. In the last seven days, 650 Maine high school athletes set a new outdoor personal best. That is not a soft taper. That is a state full of kids who timed it correctly, which is harder than it sounds when your season started indoors in a hallway in February.
The Maine flavor, by the numbers
If you want to know who has been showing up to work, the team leaderboard is doing the talking. On the boys side, Hampden Academy has racked up 60 first place finishes this outdoor season, which is the kind of number you put on a banner and then argue about where to hang it. Brunswick leads the girls side with 56 first place finishes, which is the same conversation in a different gym. Those are not state-meet predictions, those are receipts.
For state-leading individual marks, the boys leader is York with 2, and the girls leader is Scarborough with 4. Different stat, different story, same point: a handful of programs have been quietly stacking the Trophy Room all spring and the rest of us are just now catching up to the math.
The multi-event monsters
There is a specific kind of athlete who shows up to a state meet with two bibs pinned on, and Maine has a roster of them this year.
Ella Cameron of Yarmouth is the state leader in BOTH the Girls Discus Throw at 128-09 AND the Girls Javelin Throw at 128-02, and she also sits at #6 on the Girls Throwers Triple Crown. A discus thrower who is also the best javelin thrower in the state is the track and field version of a quarterback who also punts. You do not see it every year.
Drew Gervais of Bonny Eagle has the cleanest sprint double on the leaderboard, sitting #1 in the Boys 100m at 10.63 and #1 in the Boys 200m at 21.91. That is two finals, back to back, both as the fastest seed in the state.
Laurel Driscoll, meanwhile, is doing the distance version of the same trick. State leader in the Girls 1600m at 4:59.23 and state leader in the Girls 3200m at 10:48.09, plus #8 on the Girls Distance Triple Crown. A sub-five 1600 and a sub-eleven 3200 from the same person is not a coincidence, that is a training block working exactly the way the calendar drew it up.
Isabella Harmon has the vertical-events double, leading the Girls Pole Vault at 11-0 and the Girls High Jump at 5-8, which is a pit-to-pit sprint between events that will absolutely be a meet management problem for someone with a clipboard. Victoria Zandan is doing the same thing with hurdles, sitting #1 in the Girls 100m Hurdles at 15.30 and #1 in the Girls 300m Hurdles at 45.60.
The boys mid-distance is sitting on Atticus Merriam, state leader in the Boys 800m at 1:55.67 plus #8 on the Boys Distance Triple Crown. Ali Carter has the Boys 400m at 49.53 plus #10 on the Boys Sprints Triple Crown. And SOPHIA POULIN has stacked the Girls Long Jump lead at 18-7, the Sophomore Girls High Jump at 5-2.50, and #17 on the Girls Jumpers Triple Crown, which is three events worth of warm-up routines in one afternoon.
The single-event leaders worth your folding chair
Plenty of state titles are going to be decided by athletes who only have one bib to worry about, which is a tactical advantage we should stop pretending is not real.
Seth Banakos of York has the Boys Javelin Throw lead at 188-03, which is the kind of mark you sit down for. Jake Bassi of Bangor leads the Boys Discus Throw at 175-9. William Fagan leads the Boys Shot Put at 56-6.50 and also sits at #44 on the Boys Throwers Triple Crown for good measure. Bossay Ditanduka of South Portland has the Boys Long Jump at 22-1, Nsungui Mankatu has the Triple Jump at 47-9.75, Thomas LeBlanc has the Pole Vault at 15-6, and Ethan Walsh has the High Jump at 6-8 plus #37 on the Boys Jumpers Triple Crown. Devin Berry sits on the Boys 110m Hurdles at 14.56, Noah Madden owns the 300m Hurdles at 40.30, Ryan Bolduc has the 1600m at 4:17.61, and Alex Gilbert has the 3200m at 9:29.11.
On the girls side, Sloan Gardner of Cape Elizabeth leads the Shot Put at 40-06.75, Sydney Leveille of Marshwood leads the Triple Jump at 38-5.80, Miah Jacobs has the 100m at 12.21, Macey Weisberg has the 200m at 24.97, Seneca Haney has the 400m at 58.15 plus #5 on the Girls Sprints Triple Crown, and Addison Elliott has the 800m at 2:13.46. The top of every list, basically, has receipts. Check the State Records page if you want to know which of these are bumping into history.
The 650-PR surge
About those 650 personal bests in the last week. The improvement leaderboard is the fun part, because the top of the list is full of throwers who finally found the release point. Lucas Barbalias of Bangor Christian threw the Discus 50-6, a 39.6 percent improvement. Jade Gardner of Washington Academy hit 95-5 in the Javelin Throw, up 38.8 percent. Ashraf Alkinani of Cape Elizabeth went 68-1 in the Javelin Throw for a 36.6 percent jump. Acadia Simmons of George Stevens hit 79-5 in the Discus, up 35.9 percent. Landon King of Mattanawcook went 12-8.25 in the Long Jump, a 35.3 percent leap. Benjamin Hooper of Hampden Academy threw 108-5 in the Discus, up 34.3 percent. Matthew Carle of Hermon hit 92-7 in the Javelin, up 34.2 percent. Layla Peirce of Central went 68-11 in the Discus, up 34.0 percent. And Joshua Long of Lake Region threw 99-9 in the Javelin Throw, up 33.4 percent.
That is not coincidence, that is a state full of kids who learned a thing in May and got to show it in June.
The full meet Slate is loaded. Bring the blanket. Bring the other jacket too.
Wicked good week for it.