HS football: The week ahead

Weekend peek

All games Saturday

Western Class B

Mtn. Valley (8-2) at Cape Elizabeth (10-0)

HS football: News and notes

New and improved

In a segment of history marked by recession and the death of entire industries, this weekend's regional championship pairings again prove that Maine high school football is in nothing but an unprecedented growth cycle.

Four of the dozen surviving teams did not even exist at the varsity level in their current class at the start of the decade.

HS football: Player of the week

Player of the week

Josh Strickland, RB, Leavitt

One play after receiving a 15-yard penalty for the impossible task of hurdling a would-be tackler who was in a standing position, Strickland raced for an 84-yard touchdown. That sequence highlighted his career-high 265 yards in Leavitt's 35-7 Western Class B semifinal rout of Hampden.

 

HS football: Top 10

1. Bangor (10-0)

Rams get the benefit of the doubt as the last surviving Class A unbeaten. As for whether or not we believe they're actually the best team, well, consult the picks elsewhere on this page.

2. Cheverus (8-2)

Stags play to the level of their opponents. And in the playoffs, isn't that a good thing?

3. Windham (9-1)

Eagles got their wake-up call from Cheverus nine weeks ago. We'll see if they answer it this time.

4. Thornton (9-1)

Let's not completely throw out an amazing body of work.

The Hot Corner: Twelve things we learned this football season

Twelve steps through the learning process of the high school football playoffs to date, one for each surviving team:

1. You don't want Mountain Valley having a second chance to beat you. Are you listening, Cape Elizabeth? The Falcons have avenged their last two regular-season defeats on the road in the playoffs: The Capers (2007 Western Class B final) and York (last week's regional semifinal).

Time is now for Barnies to step forward

ORONO — Troy Barnies is halfway through his college basketball career at the University of Maine, but he already feels the sense of urgency of a senior.

"Being a junior, I know what I have to do now," he said. "I've got two years left. It's really my time to do things."

So Barnies, the former Mr. Maine Basketball at Edward Little, focused on building his body and his intangibles. To the latter, he has vowed to take a more vocal leadership role in his junior year.

On the road again: Maineiacs face three games in four nights

LEWISTON — Crisis of confidence? Lack of motivation? Lowered expectations?

Not quite, Lewiston Maineiacs' coach Don MacAdam said Tuesday, but elements of each have started to creep into the team's locker room, and the staff is working on nipping those feelings — and their symptoms — in the bud.

"The one thing we want our players to do, and we did it (Tuesday) morning before practice, we wanted them to talk about their individual purpose," MacAdam said.

Maine women looking for turnaround

ORONO —The University of Maine women's basketball team has little nostalgia for the 2008-09 season.

But if something positive came out of the 5-25 campaign (3-13 in America East), it was that the Black Bears are willing to do whatever it takes not to relive it.

"We don't like that feeling," senior point guard Kristin Baker said. "We want to get in the gym. We want to get better. We spent the summer together working hard. A lot of people put in the time this year, so we're excited for it."

Kane enjoying the view from Orono

ORONO — From his office overlooking Memorial Gymnasium, Gavin Kane can reflect on the University of Maine women's basketball past and present and contemplate its future.

Memorial Gym, the Black Bears' former home court and current practice court affectionately dubbed "the Pit," is scheduled to undergo a $12.5 million renovation. The improvements will allow Maine to once again play its home games in the 83-year-old building, rather than at Alfond Arena. 

Correction

The photo on page D1 accompanying the St. Dom's boys' soccer story should have stated that Nick Brigham and Cam Brown were holding the state championship trophy. The information was incorrectly submitted to the Sun Journal.

 

Swept away: Oceanic pound Maineiacs

LEWISTON — It's been a rare game this season in which the Lewiston Maineiacs have held the advantage in the shot column and lost.

Count Sunday's among them.

With an all-too-familiar lackluster performance that has plagued them in the best-attended home games this season, the Lewiston Maineiacs delivered just one goal as the Rimouski Oceanic, coached by former Lewiston skipper Clem Jodoin, walked over them in a 4-1 victory in front of 2,157 on hand for a Veteran's Day salute at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

Bruins take edge off Sabres

BOSTON (AP) — Marco Sturm's reaction after his first goal in over a month showed what the goal-starved Boston Bruins had been going through.

Mark Recchi and Zdeno Chara scored first-period power-play goals as the Bruins halted a rough stretch with a 4-2 win over Buffalo on Saturday night, sending the Sabres to their first consecutive losses of the season.

College roundup: Bates gets first win of '09

LEWISTON — Bates defensive end Tyler Kuehl intercepted a pass and returned it 25 yards for a touchdown to lift the Bobcats to a 28-24 victory over Bowdoin in a CBB football matchup Saturday.

Under pressure from defensive tackle Devin Horvath, backup quarterback R.J. Shea's pass on third and nine from the Bowdoin 31 was tipped at the line of scrimmage by Kuehl. The lineman gathered the ball and rumbled 25 yards for the go-ahead score, only a minute after the Bobcats (1-6) had closed the gap to 24-21 on Matt Gregg's 23-yard touchdown reception.

Holding court never gets old for one of the NBA's finest - Rick Barry

WATERVILLE — Rick Barry hasn't changed much over the years. Sure his gait has lost a step and he may get up out his chair a little slower, but he still has a great deal of passion for the game of basketball.

That passion was on display Saturday at Thomas College where the basketball Hall of Famer held a clinic for area coaches. To no surprise, the 65-year old stressed teaching young players the fundamentals of the game, something Barry was known for during his playing days.

QMJHL, Maineiacs on Swine Flu alert

 LEWISTON — After learning in recent weeks of an outbreak of the H1N1 virus (known as the Swine Flu) on several National Hockey League rosters, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League this week made public that a pair of players from the Moncton Wildcats have also contracted the virus. Those players and several others who had immediate contact with them have been quarantined, and the team's games this weekend were postponed indefinitely.

Closer to home, the Lewiston Maineiacs haven't seen any signs of the illness among their own, but they're being vigilant.

The Hot Corner: Whatever happened to being a good sport

It was a miserable week for sportsmanship. And I wish I were only lamenting the lack of civility between opposing sides on Election Day referendum issues.

Scholar-athletes spent way too much time the last eight days scrawling the last three letters at the conclusion of the word "class."

Think that makes me a prude? Congratulations! You're the problem.

State XC: Cougars take third in Class A; Thomas a force in Class C

CUMBERLAND — Sometimes, it's best to leave things unspoken.

Mt. Blue cross country running coach Kelley Cullenberg knew this week that her girls' squad had a chance to place in the top three at the Class A stste championship meet.

But she never mentioned it to the team.

Western Class C football semifinal: Dirigo makes quick work of Winthrop

DIXFIELD — Dirigo High School continues to teach its football opponents the value of a minute.

Sure, you might move the chains and cover the field for three or four revolutions of the clock at a time. Out of the 48 minutes in a regulation game, you might even celebrate the moral victory of playing 45 of them to a stalemate.

But the Western Class C playoffs are when seconds count, and those blinks and hiccups are what hoisted unbeaten, top-seeded Dirigo to a 26-0 whitewashing of No. 4 Winthrop in Saturday's semifinal at Harlow Park.

Cougars' speed, big plays burn Ramblers

DIXFIELD —Coach Doug Gilbert makes no bones about it — the Dirigo Cougars are built for speed.

"I've got a 290-pounder that doesn't play a lot, just because of that," Gilbert said following the top-seeded Cougars' 26-0 Western Class C semifinal win over No. 5 Winthrop. "It's the way the defense is built and it's the way the offense is built."

Outdoors in Maine: Of heaths and hummocks

The legendary Maine Guide, like so many of our institutions, is undergoing profound change.

Sainthood: St. Dom's storms Fort Kent

HAMPDEN — Fifty two seconds is all it took.

If the St. Dom's boys' soccer team wondered if it would come out strong Saturday or questioned whether it would have a bundle of nerves to start the Class C state championship game, the Saints got their answer in just seconds.

St. Dom's scored the first of three first-half goals in the first minute of play at Hampden Academy to beat Fort Kent convincingly in a 4-1 victory.

Eastern Class B semifinal: Hornets fly past Broncos

TURNER — Leavitt's offense had one message for the coaching staff as it developed the game plan for the Pine Tree Conference Class B semifinal against Hampden Academy.

We want redemption.

"We played very poorly on the offensive line and, honestly, our backfield didn't do their jobs the first time we played," Leavitt coach Mike Hathaway said, referring to Leavitt's 29-22 overtime win in Week 1 against Hampden. "Those guys said, 'Coach, we want to run the football, and we're going to do it right this time.'"

Strickland has a lot of back up

TURNER — It's been easy to forget that Leavitt Area High School probably has one of the state's top three football running backs in its camp.

When you're scoring nearly 50 points per game, haven't allowed a trip to the end zone in over a month, and everyone but the waterboys and trainer gets a carry or two in frequent garbage time, star power subjugates itself to collective chaos.

Western Class B football semifinal: Falcons get back at Wildcats

YORK — At 5 feet, 8 inches, Tim Ross isn't your prototypical cornerback, even in Maine high school football. But Friday night, the 129-pound senior felt like the tallest player on the field.

Ross picked off a long stretch pass from York quarterback Chris Cole intended for a much taller and larger Jared Prugar to stuff a late Wildcats drive and helped his Falcons avenge a 19-point loss during the regular season as Mountain Valley snuck away from York High School with a 14-10 Western Class B semifinal win.

Black Bears hope to stay on defensive against JMU

In too many games this season, the University of Maine Black Bears have returned from the locker room for the second half a different team than the one that went in after the first half.

Last Saturday against the University of Massachusetts, the Black Bears looked like a different team in the second half again. But coach Jack Cosgrove was happy with the change.