Editor’s Note: The following is the first of two articles highlighting some of the top sports stories from 2017. This article highlights the events from January to June. The second half of the year will be featured next week on our website.
January
Darren Carlisle (Class of 2002), Katie Delong McQuade (2006), Peter Fields (1973), Eugene Fitzgerald (1958) and Andy Packard (1970) were this year’s inductees into the Presque Isle High School Athletic Hall of Fame. They were recognized at an induction dinner held at the Northeastland Hotel.
Chandler Guerrette, a senior at Husson University, reached the 1,000-point mark during a game against Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina. Guerrette is a 2013 graduate of Presque Isle High School and was an all-state player and two-time state champion with the Wildcats.
The Central Aroostook Middle School cheering squad proved to be the cream of the crop, capturing the 2017 Aroostook League Middle School Cheering Competition championship. The Panthers bested squads from Houlton, Caribou and two from Presque Isle in securing the league crown. Presque Isle Middle School “White” finished second in the event, while Houlton was third.
The Fort Fairfield Tigers won their ninth consecutive basketball game to stay atop the Class C North division. Coach Logan McLaughlin’s team finished the month with an 11-1 record.
Presque Isle’s Faith Sjoberg and Washburn’s Brayden Castonguay advanced to the state finals of the Elks Hoop Shoot free throw contest. Representing Presque Isle Lodge 1954, both won the district championship held in Bangor, with Sjoberg going 23 for 25 and 5 for 5 in a tie-breaker in the 12-13 girls’ age group and Castonguay making 20 of 25 in the 12-13 boys’ division.
Varsity cheerleading squads gathered in Caribou for the Aroostook League Championships. Houlton took first place, Presque Isle came in second and Central Aroostook was third. Central Aroostook was voted the Spirit Award winner and Chloe Wheeler and Sarah Gerritsen, both of CA, and Clara Kohlbacher, Miranda Drost and Victoria Williamson, all of Presque Isle, garnered All-Aroostook honors. At the Penobscot Valley Conference championships, also in Caribou, Hermon was the overall champion out of eight teams and PI came in sixth.
February
Brayden Castonguay of Washburn and Faith Sjoberg of Presque Isle both won the Elks Hoop Shoot state championship in the 12-13-year-old age group at Bath Middle School. Castonguay connected on 21 of 25 shots to also take the Amos McCallum Award for being the boy with the highest overall score. Sjoberg went 23 of 25 in the 12-13 girls’ division to win the Alan Richard Award as the state’s top female shooter.
Former Fort Fairfield High School standout Amanda Hotham reached the 1,000-point mark for the UMPI women’s basketball team during a 72-34 win over Pratt University in Brooklyn, New York.
Nick Bartlett of Presque Isle came in first place in the giant slalom at the Aroostook League Championships, held at Fort Kent’s Lonesome Pine Trails.
Madelyn Wing, a Presque Isle High School student who swims for Carlisle, placed fourth in the 500 freestyle and fifth in the 200 freestyle at the PVC championship meet held in Bangor.
Eleven of the 12 basketball teams from the region made it into the postseason after the final Heal Point rankings were released.
The Easton girls picked up a victory in their first basketball tournament appearance in 26 years by defeating Deer Isle-Stonington, 45-23, in the quarterfinal round. The Washburn girls pulled off an upset over Central Aroostook in the quarters, while the Fort Fairfield, Easton and Central Aroostook boys also won in that round. Presque Isle stopped John Bapst in the Class B girls’ quarters despite a fourth-quarter ankle injury suffered by star guard Emily Wheaton.
Central Aroostook won its fourth consecutive Class D state championship in cheerleading during the competition held at the Augusta Civic Center. The Panthers scored 70 points to defeat runner-up PVHS by 6.6 points.
March
The Fort Fairfield Tigers were the only local team to advance into the regional basketball championships. Fort Fairfield, which beat Schenck of East Millinocket in the semifinals, fell to George Stevens Academy of Blue Hill in the title game, 59-45. Isaac Cyr, Chris Giberson, Jake Flewelling, Emily Wheaton and Isabelle Morin were all named to the Bangor Daily News all-tournament team.
The Presque Isle hockey team, which won six of its last eight regular season games, made it into the Class B North playoffs. The Wildcats fell to Brewer in the quarterfinals.
Max Bartley came in sixth in the Class B Nordic freestyle state meet, held at Sugarloaf. The Wildcat junior had a time of 15:22.9. He was also 12th in the classical-style race.
The Aroostook County Snowdogs, a Special Olympics basketball team, captured the Div. I state title at a tournament held in Gorham. The team competing in Div. II came in fourth and another in Div. III came in fifth. The teams are coached by Brian Hamel.
The Presque Isle and Fort Fairfield boys and Madawaska and Easton girls earned Aroostook League volleyball titles during tourneys held throughout the region.
Chris Giberson of the Fort Fairfield Tigers, Jake Flewelling of the Easton Bears and Emily Lagerstrom of the Presque Isle Wildcats were all selected to play in the McDonald’s Senior All-Star Basketball Game in Bangor. Lagerstrom was also a Maine Miss Basketball semifinalist and ended up winning the state foul shooting championship during McDonald’s all-star weekend.
Madelyn Wing of the Carlisle swim team placed eighth in the 500 freestyle and 12th in the 200 freestyle at the Class A state swim championships held at Bowdoin College in Brunswick.
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- Michael Bruce of Fort Fairfield follows through on a shot during a qualifying round of the Drive, Chip and Putt Championships. Last April, the 9-year-old competed in the national finals at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, site of the Masters Tournament. (Getty Images)
April
Fort Fairfield 9-year-old Michael Bruce came in third in the nation in his age group in putting at the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals held during Masters weekend in Augusta, Georgia.
Emily Wheaton, a Presque Isle High School junior, was named to the Bangor Daily News All-Maine Schoolgirl Basketball Team. She earned a berth on the third team after averaging 18.9 points, 4.7 assists and 2 steals per game for the Wildcats.
SAD 1 Athletic Director Mark White received the Keith Lancaster Professional Development Award at the Maine Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association spring conference in Rockport.
The Dream Team won the Men’s Basketball League championship for the third consecutive year, defeated Loring Job Corps in the finals, 60-50, behind Greg Whitaker’s 20 points.
Fort Fairfield native Lance McKenney enjoyed a successful competitive ski season. He made the United States Junior World Nordic Championship Team in the U20 age group. At the Junior Worlds in Soldier Hollow, Utah, he placed 20th overall in the classic sprints. He is a 2016 graduate of FFHS.
Caribou’s P.J. Gorneault and Marie Beckum were the overall winners of the UMPI Spring Runoff 5K Road Race held at the University of Maine at Presque Isle.
Kayla Buck and Kimberley Wright, both of Mapleton; Richard Hoppe of Portage Lake and Justin Fereshetian of Mars Hill were local participants in the Boston Marathon.
Heather Bradbury was named athletic director for SAD 42 in Mars Hill. She has coached in the system over the past 25 years and is a third-grade teacher at Fort Street Elementary School.
Faith Sjoberg finished third in the Elks Hoop Shoot National Finals held in Chicago, Illinois. She went 23 for 25 in regulation and then hit all 15 of her shots in a tie-breaker. The Presque Isle Middle School seventh-grader had taken first place overall and in her age division at the New England Regionals to earn her second consecutive trip to the national championships.
Keith Hayward, the longtime former director of the Presque Isle Recreation and Parks Department, was named one of the inductees into the Maine Sports Legends Hall of Honors.
Siblings Nick and Carmen Bragg of Washburn were both named United States Collegiate Athletic Association All-Americans. Both are students at the University of Maine at Augusta and played on the Moose basketball teams.
May
Presque Isle senior Tori Koch and Fort Fairfield sophomore Jonah Daigle were the overall points leaders at the Aroostook League Track and Field Championships held in Presque Isle. Koch ended up taking first place in the PVC Large School Championships in the 400-meter dash.
From left, Olivia Pelletier, Hunter Nicholson, and Holly O’Leary perform for Central Aroostook during last February’s Class D North-South Cheering Championships at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor. The Panthers won the state title for the fourth consecutive year. (Courtesy of Amy Ward)
Washburn native Carsyn Koch won another national championship. The Cedarville University junior won the 800-meter race at the NCAA Division II Outdoor Championships in Bradenton, Florida with a time of 2 minutes and 5.21 seconds. She was named the conference’s female athlete of the year.
Nearly 300 Special Oympians from throughout Aroostook County gathered at Presque Isle Middle School’s Johnson Athletic Complex for the annual spring track and field games.
The Fort Fairfield baseball teams completed the month with a 12-0 record, putting them near the top of the Class D North rankings. Coach John Ala serves as the team’s head coach.
Soccer player Carla Halvorson of Easton and Nordic skier Connor Hrynuk of Boonville, New York were named female and male athletes of the year during the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s athletic awards banquet.
June
The Maine Lumberjacks’ 12-year-old and under girls’ basketball team took first place out of 12 team in the Zero Gravity National Finals held in Boston. The team includes players from Caribou, Fort Fairfield, Presque Isle, Oakfield, Houlton and Patten.
Tori Koch, a senior for the Presque Isle Wildcats, placed second in the 400-meter dash at the Class B state track and field championships held in Yarmouth. She had a time of 1:00.05 in the event and also took third in the triple jump and fifth in the long jump. At the Class C state meet in Dover-Foxcroft, Jonah Daigle of Fort Fairfield placed second in the 110-meter hurdles in 15.56 seconds and was third in both the 300 hurdles and the long jump.
Dillon Kingsbury, who coached the Easton boys for four seasons and the Houlton boys for another, was named the head coach of the Central Aroostook girls basketball team, replacing Cody Tompkins, who was there for two seasons.
Dan Kane was chosen as the new athletic director and men’s basketball coach at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. Kane is a native of Bradford and previously coached at UM-Farmington and Connecticut College.
The Fort Fairfield Tigers’ baseball team beat PVHS in the quarterfinals and Hodgdon in the semifinals before losing to Bangor Christian in the Class D North regional championship game by a score of 9-3.
Tyler Putnam resigned as girls’ varsity basketball coach at Washburn after one season, while Cody Closson, a Fort Fairfield native, was named the new coach of the Easton boys’ basketball team. He replaced Manny Martinez, who coached the Bears into the Class D state championship game in 2016.
