Courtsey of Brian Beard

Last Saturday, the women’s indoor track and field team won the 2025 Maine State Indoor Track and Field Championship. The meet was hosted at Farley Field House and marked the team’s  third consecutive state championship win.

Kennedy Kirkland ’27 set a meet record in the long jump and took a runner-up finish in the 60m. The team also won the 4x800m relay run by Kaylee Hale ’28, Lex Davis ’26, Emma Randall-Jarrard ’26 and Sophie Maguire ’26.

Emma Gibbens ’25 sees the championship meet as an exciting way to showcase the team’s skills at this point in the season.

“This is a really important competition for us and has a lot of history. There’s a lot of pride that goes into it…. It’s really nice to have the opportunity to kind of show where we’re at in season and show where we can go, and we’ll put everyone on notice as we move into [the outdoor season],” Gibbens said.

Gibbens also noted that trusting the preparation process for meets, especially championships, has been key to the team’s repeated success.

“I think there’s a lot of trust in the process. We move into what feels, particularly for first years, like a very short [outdoor] season. Our lifts … massively decrease, and we have to trust that we’re gonna stay powerful, we’re gonna stay strong,” Gibbens said. “We’re just not lifting immediately as much as we just did [during indoor season], and it’s because we’re trying to prime our bodies for this championship season.”

Rather than feeling pressured to perform as well as teams of past years, Hale only felt excitement as she prepared to run the relay.

“I think there was a little pressure. But just having it here at Bowdoin, it was [less] pressure, because it was under our conditions,” Hale said. “I think there was just this great story behind Maine State, and we heard all these traditions and all these amazing stories of things happening there in the past. So I just had this satisfaction knowing that no matter what happened, it was going to be a really good time regardless of the results.”

Hale also highlighted her celebration for teammates who set multiple personal records at the meet.

“Several of my teammates had amazing [personal records], which I don’t think people realize … is sometimes one of the hardest things to achieve in running,” Hale said.

Tomorrow, both the men’s and women’s track and field teams will compete in their Pride Meet at the Lynn Ruddy invitational hosted at home at Farley Field house.

Looking ahead, Gibbens noted that the team will be preparing to transition from the indoor to outdoor track.

“We’re working towards NESCACs and being successful there, so staying motivated throughout this period [of indoor track] is hard,” Gibbens said. “[The team will be] staying motivated through [the end of the indoor season], continuing our training and then thinking about how some of us transition to outdoor and how we’re going to continue to be successful in outdoor events.”