Montville — Caitlin Turney, senior captain, CIAC scholar-athlete, was the first one on the track for the Montville High School girls Tuesday afternoon in a meet with fellow Eastern Connecticut Conference Medium Division unbeaten Bacon Academy.

Montville, in order to repeat as ECC Medium champ, would have to not only beat Bacon on Tuesday, but Stonington on Friday.

So ... first event, the 4x800-meter relay, in a critical week.

"Caitlin ran a really aggressive first lap," Montville coach Joel Finnegan said. "(Bacon's) kid came off like, 'Oh, my God.' (Turney) set the tone. That created the space we needed in that relay. She is a very thorough and focused kid. She's as good as it gets."

Montville won the 4x800, the 4x100, the 100 hurdles and 100 in rapid succession to start the meet and went on to beat Bacon 90-60 to take sole possession of first place in the Medium. The Indians (5-1, 4-0) will compete at Stonington (3-1 in the division) to decide the title.

"I love being in Montville. I love my team," Montville senior Kiah Strickland said. "I don't want to see us lose. We got hard hit last year with graduation; we're going to be hard hit this year with graduation with all the seniors we have. I want us to go out on a high note."

Strickland — who will compete at Southern Connecticut State University next year along with Montville alums Shatajah Wattely and Sonja Campbell — won the 100 hurdles, 300 hurdles, long jump and javelin. Her javelin Tuesday was painted blue and white, Southern's colors.

Meanwhile sophomore Maddy Campbell won the discus with a personal best 99 feet, 7 inches, ran a leg of the winning 4x100 relay and was second in the long jump and the triple jump.

It's that versatility that has helped Montville through another thus-far unbeaten Medium Division season, despite such losses from last year's team as high jumper/4x400 keystone Abby McAdams.

"We have so many people working hard, we're able to fill those holes," Campbell said.

Nadia Dallas (100), Abby Baukus (1,600), Naomi Clark (pole vault), Suzie Fitzgerald (3,200) and Mel Huang (triple jump) also won individual events for the Indians.

Fitzgerald, Hanna Marchini and Baukus joined Turney to win the 4x800, while Campbell, Dallas, Haley Bedard and Tavahnee West took the 4x100 and Ashley Kolasa, Bedard, Selina Morales and Taylor LaVallie won the 4x400.

"They're pretty focused right now. They know the importance of this week," said Finnegan, who was able to hold back a few of his athletes toward the end of the meet to save some strength for Friday.

Bacon defeated Stonington 80-70 last week, handing the Bears their first Medium Division loss. A Stonington win Friday over Montville would mean a three-way tie for the division title. Finnegan predicts it will be close.

"A lot of times it's about matchups," Finnegan said. "They had an off day a little bit against Bacon. ... (Starting out the meet), that's our strength. The 4x800, 4x100, in the hurdles we went first and third and in the 100 we went first and third (for a 22-6) lead. That's a good place to be after four events. Today was just about winning and moving on to Friday."

v.fulkerson@theday.com

Twitter: @vickieattheday