Two Bangor-area interscholastic distance runners earned top-15 finishes in the girls’ two-mile competition at the New Balance Nationals Outdoors track and field championships held over the weekend at Franklin Field on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania.
Ruth White, who recently completed her sophomore year at Orono High School, finished 11th among 24 competitors in the event with a time of 10 minutes, 40.81 seconds while recent Bangor High School graduate Megan Randall placed 14th in 10:47.88.
White, who set a meet record while winning the 3,200-meter run at the Class C state championships with a time of 10:46.38 and then placed second at the same distance at the New England championships on June 11, won the first of two heats at the New Balance meet.
That was just ahead of Randall, the reigning Class A 3,200-meter state champion who finished third at the New Englands. She placed third in the first heat at the New Balance competition.
The times from the two heats were combined to determine the finishing order.
Randall’s Bangor High School teammate, Anna Connors, placed 25th overall in the girls 400-meter run.
The rising senior, who swept the 100-, 200- and 400-meter dash titles while leading Bangor to its second straight Class A girls track and field championships on June 4, finished second in the first of six heats in the 400 at nationals, with her time of 56.78 seconds standing up for 25th overall among the 36 participating sprinters.
Maine finishers in the championship division of the New Balance meet were led by Rowan McDonald of Standish, a rising junior at Bonny Eagle High School who finished second in the boys’ 1-mile race walk.
The reigning Maine Class A state champion in the 1,600-meter race walk, McDonald finished in 7:17.12, just behind the 7:16.27 posted by New Balance national champion Isaac Gray of Brighton, New York, as those two walkers stayed within a second of each other for nearly all of the race.
Ashlyn Poulin of Gardiner placed third in the New Balance girls 1-mile race walk in 7:50.60. Poulin is the 2022 Class B state champion in the girls 1,600-meter race walk.
Frank Morang, a recent graduate of Cheverus High School in Portland, placed fifth in the boys long jump with a best of 23 feet, 8 inches. That followed his first-place efforts in that event at both the Class A state championships and the New England meet.
Morang also placed fifth in the rising stars division of the New Balance triple jump with a best of 44-11. The rising stars division has a lower qualifying standard for entry than the championship division.
Other top-25 finishes in the championship division were turned in by Shelby Anderson of Marshwood High School in South Berwick and Matt Charpentier of York.
Anderson placed 20th in the girls’ javelin with a best of 115 feet, 8 inches. A rising senior, she had finished second in that event at both the Class A state and the New England championship meets.
Charpentier, also a rising senior and the Class B state champion in the boys shot put and discus, finished 25th in the shot put at the New Balance meet with a best of 52-8 ¾.
Two Maine relay teams earned top-five finishes in the rising stars division. The Bonny Eagle High School quartet of Delaney Hesler, Addy Thibodeau, Hannah Stevens and Emmaline Pendleton won the girls 4×800 in 9:25.45.
The Falmouth 4×100 tandem of Charlie Adams, Will Addison, Andrew Christie and Finn Caxton-Smith finished third in the rising stars competition with a time of 43.19.
