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Patience isn’t a virtue typically associated with sprinting, but it’s what Emerson Flaker learned to rely on most this spring.

The Scarborough senior had already clocked Maine’s fastest 100- and 400-meter times of the outdoor season in the May 13 meet at Windham, when a “pinching pain” in her left hamstring forced her to slow down during the homestretch of the 200-meter dash.

The apparent strain was the first time Flaker, the reigning Class A sprint triple crown champion and Gatorade Athlete of the Year, had ever suffered a muscular injury. So, she sought advice from her oldest brother Jarett, who had dealt with a similar injury during his illustrious high school track career at Scarborough. Emerson embraced the remedies of massages, tape and heat therapy, but she wasn’t excited about the most important one — rest.

“It’s definitely hard (to take a break),” Flaker said. “For me, I always want to train my hardest, and I’m always on the go. I wanted to quickly get back to running, and I wanted a fast recovery. But for something with your hamstring, you can’t push it to get back quickly, because that just is a higher chance you’re going to hurt it again. So it was really hard for me to remember to be patient, know it’s going to take time to heal and just trust the process of everything going on.”

Flaker recovered enough to retain her standing as the state’s top sprinter during the postseason, and those results make her 2025 Varsity Maine Girls Outdoor Track and Field Athlete of the Year. New England long jump champion Sophia Chase, a junior at Bangor, was also considered.

The two-and-a-half weeks following her injury, Flaker still showed up to practice and meets to support her teammates. She also maintained her fitness levels through upper body workouts, riding the elliptical machine and biking. If there was a way to train without putting added stress on her hamstrings, Flaker was willing to do it.

“She even offered to do the mile,” Scarborough head coach Denise Curry said. “You know what I mean? She offered to do other events because she wanted to run. It’s the start of sprinting that really engages the hamstring.”

When Flaker finally got her chance to return, she didn’t disappoint.

She eased back into racing with two events at the SMAA championship on May 30, winning the 400 by over a second and anchoring the first-place 3,200-meter relay team. At the Class A state meet, she defended her 200 and 400 individual titles, kicked off Scarborough’s winning 4×400 relay and registered the fastest split in the 3,200 relay with her anchor leg for the runner-up Red Storm. The latter event was one Curry had been trying to get Flaker to compete in for years.

“Definitely by the end, I was pretty tired, because that’s the most running I’ve done in few weeks,” Flaker said. “But it was all worth it. … I just thought of those moments when I just couldn’t run and that’s the only thing I wanted to do, and that really just helped push me and keep going.”

Flaker opted out of defending her 100 title to avoid the risk of further injury, but her mark of 12.14 seconds at the Windham meet remained the state’s fastest time of the season. She also logged Maine’s best 200 of the season, plus a personal and school record, with a championship time of 25.11. Four days later at New Englands, before reinjuring her hamstring in the 200, she placed sixth in the 400 and lowered her state-best time from 56.12 to 56.10. No one else in Maine broke 59 seconds.

There were times and progressions that Flaker was disappointed she didn’t reached due to her absence, but Curry said she was not surprised nor worried about the sprinter’s rise back to the top.

“We know she’s fit, and we knew she’d be fine. She gets out there, and she’s competitive,” said Curry, adding that any internal or external pressure Flaker may have felt only drove her to run faster.

The season’s efforts also allowed Flaker, who will join the University of Connecticut track team this fall, to become first repeat Gatorade Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year since Cheverus sprinter-turned-Harvard middle distance runner Victoria Bossong won three awards from 2019-2021.