Pony boys finish second at state indoor track meet

LEWISTON — The Foxcroft Academy boys indoor track and field team finished as the runner-up at the 2016 Class B state championship on Feb. 13 at Bates College. The Ponies scored 44 points to finish second out of 25 point-scoring schools, trailing only the 56 points picked up by York High School which won the Class B crown for the fourth time in five years. The finish tied the highest performance for a Foxcroft team at the state meet in school history, as the 2013 squad also came in the second place.

Senior Hunter Smith led Foxcroft by winning the Class B crown in the high jump. Smith cleared the bar at 6 feet, 2 inches, to best runner-up freshman Gavin McDonald of Orono High School by six inches. Smith, who also played for the Pony basketball team this winter, is a two-time defending state champion in the high jump during the outdoor track season.

Smith came in second place in the long jump at the state meet, with at top distance of 20-02.50. He added a sixth-place performance in the triple jump at a distance of 38-07.50 to account for 20 of his team’s 44 points.

The Pony 4×800 relay team had the second best time at the Class B championship. Sophomore Tobias Hogfeldt, senior Gabe Piquette, junior Chandler Rockwell and senior Cooper Nelson combined for a time of 8 minutes, 37.17 seconds.

Senior Nathaniel Church finished in third place in the 200, running a time of 23.80 seconds. He also came in sixth in the 55 at 6.84 seconds. Church ran the opening leg of the fifth-place 4×200 relay team, followed by senior Blaine Robinson, Hogfeldt and Rockwell for a time of 1:38.67.

Hogfeldt was sixth in the 800 with a time of 2:06.99, and Nelson came in sixth in the mile with a time of 4:49.65. Rockwell rounded out the Foxcroft scoring with a point in the 400, placing seventh in 54.81 seconds.

Nelson was one of four other Pony entrants at the state championship, placing 11th in the two mile at 10:56.59. Junior Evan Chadbourne came in 14th in the 55 prelims at 7.18 seconds, Robinson finished 15th in the 200 at 24.85 seconds and junior Jason Eubanks was right behind in 16th place with a time of 25.16 seconds.