WINTHROP - Strength and endurance.

Larry Foster packed 40 pounds of mostly muscle onto a 6-foot-4, 140-pound frame in the last year to gain strength and endurance. He knew he was a smallish Winthrop team's best hope against the Mountain Valley Conference's best big men, like Boothbay's Kris Noonan and Dirigo's Thomas Knight.

If the Ramblers were going to go as far as many of the prognosticators figured, he was going to have to endure a long season, and if he didn't get stronger, he was going to get pushed out onto the perimeter. Not that he feels uncomfortable out there, not by any means.

Foster transferred from Hall-Dale his sophomore year and spent his junior season as the Ramblers' skinny sixth man. He ventured into the paint to block shots and grab an occasional rebound, but mixing it up under the glass on a regular basis wasn't physically possible. He spent most of his time roaming around the outside and tossing up 3-pointers.

A spring and summer spent in the weight room and on the AAU circuit with teammate Sam Leclerc convinced Foster that he could become a force inside if he put his mind to it.

"It helped me bring my focus back to athletics and to pushing myself more," he said.

"I learned that if you hustle as hard as you can and you go up and down the floor and you bang in the post, sooner or later your work is going to pay off," he added.

The hard work did eventually pay off for Foster, though not quite as quickly as he'd hoped. The Ramblers were expecting him and fellow senior Ezra Damm to step up their scoring this year in support of all-conference guard Leclerc, but the adjustment to playing more in the paint was difficult.

Foster got more comfortable as the season progressed. More importantly, he noticed he was getting stronger as the season went on, while his opponents were wearing down.

That has led to Foster peaking at exactly the right time and, not coincidentally, the Ramblers facing Calais for the state championship for the second time in three years.

"Larry struggled a little bit during the regular season, but in the tournament, he's stepped up," Damm said.

Foster averaged 10.2 and 6.6 rebounds per game during the regular season, then put up 14.7 and 8.3 per game in three tournament contests.

"It comes a lot easier now," he said. "I'm not tired after games anymore."

A fresh Foster is bad news for opponents, who curiously have been treating him like the perimeter-oriented player he was last year and not boxing him out. Foster, who is one of the top high school high-jumpers in the state, is too athletic, and now too strong, to keep off the boards without some attention. His work on the offensive glass, particularly in the quarterfinals against Hyde, bailed the Ramblers out when their shooting was off.

Foster can still step out beyond the arc. He had the second most 3-pointers for Winthrop in the tournament, behind Leclerc. His versatility makes him a tough matchup for any opponent, although he'll find at least one mirror image in Calais forward Rod Tirrell on Saturday.

Unlike fellow senior Leclerc, Damm and Tim Gingras, Foster wasn't around the last time Winthrop played Calais for the Gold Ball.

"I'm sure I'll talk to Sam at some point (about playing in a state championship)," he said. "I'm probably going to take it the way I take most games."

With strength and endurance, no doubt.