Saturday, November 21, 2009 in Lewiston, Maine
LEWISTON — It's remarkable how quickly the pain of an 80 mile-per-hour slap-shot off the shin disappears with a freak bounce and a puck-handling mistake by a goaltender.
Getting your bell rung.
Living in la-la land
Shaking off the cobwebs.
Seeing stars.
If you've followed football for any length of time, you know all of the euphemisms for concussions. As a sports writer, I've been guilty of using these not so clever terms, at least when relating a crunching hit I've seen. I'd like to think I haven't done it in print. If I have, it won't happen again.
Two in a row. Three out of four.
Those are the numbers for Tyler Jasud of Rumford and the University of Southern Maine men's cross country team, which continues to dominate the landscape of the Little East Conference.
Jasud captured the league's individual championship Saturday for the second year in a row. The Mountain Valley High School graduate covered the 8-kilometer course at Keene (N.H.) State in a time of 26 minutes, 2 seconds.
Winthrop football coach Joel Stoneton said one play would make all the difference in this tightly-contested Western Class C quarterfinal game in Lisbon on Saturday afternoon.
He was right, and that one key play went Winthrop's way. The No. 5 Ramblers (6-3) rushed back from a six-point deficit and dismissed the No. 4 Lisbon Greyhounds with a narrow 13-12 victory.
"The kids played very well and kids came to play today," said Stoneton.
BELFAST — Melody Lam displayed the toughness and resiliency of a true champion Saturday. Two weeks after a disappointing third-place finish in the conference championship and three days after battling an illness, the Mt. Blue senior put both of those setbacks along with the rest of the pack behind her.
Lam dominated the Eastern Maine Class A cross country regional race for the second consecutive year and led her team to a runner-up finish to Mt. Ararat.
DIXFIELD — Had Spencer Ross taken one simple handoff into the end zone Saturday afternoon, the Dirigo High School junior would have achieved football's equivalent of hitting for the cycle. But he'll happily settle for a hat trick.
Ross reeled in a touchdown reception, ran back a punt in head-spinning fashion and plucked a pick-six in the secondary, inflicting half of top-seeded Dirigo's damage in a 42-8 Western Class C quarterfinal rout of No. 8 Maranacook at Harlow Park.
CUMBERLAND — Some ran in a light mist. Some ran in scattered beams of sunlight. All ran with and against a stiff breeze.
And all ran with the same purpose — earning the right to come back to Twin Brook next week to do it all over again.
Cheverus swept Class A, Freeport dominated Class C, and the Cape Elizabeth girls and Greely boys took home Class B titles in the Western Maine cross country regionals Saturday.
AUBURN — You know it is a pretty good day when you have two goals disallowed and you don't even need them.
The St. Dom's boys' soccer team didn't need the goals that weren't. That's because the Saints had two others that held up in a convincing 2-0 win over Wiscasset Saturday. The semifinal victory advances St. Dom's to Wednesday's Western C final. The Saints will host old rivals North Yarmouth Academy, which beat Georges Valley.
POLAND - Tyler Valente rushed for 217 yards and four touchdowns Saturday to lead Gray-New Gloucester to a 35-28 victory over Poland in their Western Class B football finale.
Valente only carried the ball 17 times for a 12.8-yards-per-carry average.
The Patriots (4-5) jumped out to a 21-6 lead by halftime and extended the advantage to 35-14 after three quarters.
Quarterback Heath Martell chipped in with 41 yards rushing on four carries and one touchdown. Evan Kenney successfully converted all five point-after kicks.
TURNER - Josh Strickland rushed for three touchdowns and Jon Letourneau ran for one and scored another on a 22-yard pass to lead top-ranked Leavitt to a 55-0 thumping of Belfast in the opening round of the Eastern Class B football playoffs Friday.
The unbeaten Hornets scored all 55 points in the first half, including five touchdowns in the second quarter.
Leavitt accumulated 306 yards of total offense in the first half.
LIVERMORE FALLS — Quarterback Eric Estabrook threw an 11-yard touchdown to Brodie Woodsom with 1:21 left to play as the Yarmouth football team rallied for a thrilling 35-28 upset win against No. 2 Livermore Falls in a Class C Campbell Conference quarterfinal playoff game.
But excitement didn't end there. The Andies had the ball inside the 5-yard line and quarterback Sam Whiting was stopped short on the final play of the game. It was Whiting and Chandler White who highlighted the final drive with passes and runs during the Andies' last gasp at Griffen Field.
OAKLAND — There were moments that Seth Mason looked like a smaller version of Doug Flutie, scrambling around the Lewiston backfield while trying to lead the Lewiston Blue Devils to a come-from-behind victory Friday.
The junior quarterback tried to pass Lewiston downfield on a couple of late drives against Messalonskee, but there was no Gerard Phelan sneaking behind the defense, no lucky break and no miracle comeback for Lewiston. The Eagles held off the Blue Devils rally for a 14-6 win in the Eastern A quarterfinal.
CAPE ELIZABETH — The remaining country cynics who groused that Mountain Valley-Cape Elizabeth doesn't fit the definition of a high school football rivalry were absolutely right, this year.
Mountain Valley, like everyone else in the Class B division of the Campbell Conference, looked out of place on the same FieldTurf with Cape.
LEWISTON — When Michael Chaput took the handoff from Etienne Brodeur at the right circle, shimmied to the middle and roofed the puck over Rafaele D'Orso's left shoulder, the resulting goal hardly mattered, save for the bit of pride that stemmed from ending the Val d'Or keeper's shutout bid.
The Foreurs had made plenty sure that one Lewiston goal, even in the seond period, wasn't going to mean much on this night.
The University of Maine's bye week brought a welcome rest but unwelcome news. Sophomore fullback Jared Turcotte is done for the season.
Turcotte, a preseason All-American from Lewiston, has missed the entire 2009 campaign due to an injury he suffered just prior to training camp. On Sept. 21, he underwent lower abdominal surgery and, according to Maine coach Jack Cosgrove, visited a doctor in Lewiston earlier this week before the decision was made to shut him down for the season.
The Jayhawks were a runaway choice Thursday, receiving 55 first-place votes from the 65-member national media panel to easily outdistance Michigan State, which was No. 1 on five ballots.
With the specter of facing Saints safety Darren Sharper, Atlanta's second-year quarterback is grateful to have an extra day before visiting New Orleans on Monday night.
"He's got great football instincts, and my guess is he's very meticulous in the film room, and he studies, because that shows up," Ryan said Thursday. "That's evident when you watch tape on him."
Titans linebacker Keith Bulluck and running back LenDale White autographed a Terrible Towel after practice Thursday with the towel shipped by a Nashville radio station to the Alleghany Valley School. That's the Pittsburgh non-profit group that benefits from sales of the towel developed by the late Myron Cope.
Through the 20-year history of the Campbell Conference and dating back even to the days of the precursor Mountain Valley Conference and Southern York League, the Western Class C football playoffs haven't changed their look much. That annual playoff bracket is almost as consistent as the dimensions of the field and the height of the goalposts.
Well, forget what you know and get a new measuring tape. Or at least an industrial-strength eraser.
How else to explain Jeff Feagles' four straight punts between 28 and 35 yards in the New York Giants' loss to the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday night?
The 43-year-old Feagles just smiled when asked about the so-called slump, and then held his hand out about a foot apart to explain what went wrong.
ORONO, Maine--Laura Martel's goal 1:46 into overtime gave the University of Maine women's soccer team a 2-1 victory over New Hampshire in the America East quarterfinals on a chilly Thursday afternoon at Alumni Field in Orono.
The victory was the fifth straight for the Black Bears, who advance to face Binghamton in the America East semifinals on Sunday afternoon in Vestal, N.Y.
UNH tied the game late in the second half, but it did not take Martel, the America East Striker of the Year from Lewiston, long to send the Maine crowd home happy.
WISCASSET — A strong start was what Mark Lopez wanted.
He hoped his Mt. Abram boys' soccer team could come into Thursday's quarterfinal and assert itself and take control early. Instead, it was a Roadrunner mistake that led to an early goal and put Wiscasset in the driver's seat in a 3-0 victory in a Western C quarterfinal. The Redskins advance to Saturday's semifinal at St. Dom's.
The Pine Tree Conference playoffs kick off this Friday night with some familiar names atop the Class A and Class B brackets. And the top teams don't need to think too far back to remember how tenuous the top spot can be.
Last year's top seeds, Leavitt in Class B and Lawrence in Class A, were out of the playoffs by the end of the second round. In Turner, the Hornets needed little reminding that being the kings of the regular season was of little help to them in last year's semifinal loss to Morse.
LEWISTON — In one week, the Lewiston Maineiacs dropped from second in their division to fourth while losing three consecutive games by a combined score of 18-4. The streak is the first string of consecutive losses on the young season for Lewiston, but despite the recent results, the team isn't hanging its head.
"We've had an excellent week of practice, guys have been really up-beat," Lewiston coach Don MacAdam said. "There's been no sign of a lack of confidence in the way the guys have been acting or practicing."
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