Dan O’Connell shrugs off the notion that he’s a streak buster. Not that he’s shy about using that information on his resume.

In 1995, his first season as an offensive lineman at Bates College, O’Connell and the Bobcats bid farewell to a 37-game losing streak with a victory over rival Bowdoin. Eight years later, early in O’Connell’s rookie campaign as a coach at John Bapst Memorial High School, the Crusaders cast out the demons of a 41-game winless skid by beating Maranacook.

“When I applied for the John Bapst job,” O’Connell said of his experience in Lewiston, “I sold that story pretty hard.”

This afternoon, O’Connell and his football team will try to end another dry spell. It’s one that began about a year before he was born, and one that even the most ardent John Bapst alumni probably never thought could be quenched.

Bapst (10-1) battles Winthrop (11-0) for the Class C championship at Portland’s Fitzpatrick Stadium. Kickoff time is 2:30 p.m. The Bangor prep school captured Class B titles in 1964 and ’65 and shared its last Class C crown with Marshwood and Jay in 1976.

“John Bapst had a football history that seemed to be forgotten during those (winless) years,” said O’Connell. “There were kids with talent and commitment. They just needed something to believe in.”

O’Connell, who was a 6-foot-4, 285-pound captain his senior season at Bates, served as an assistant coach on Bapst’s last 0-8 team in 2002.

He was 24 when he applied for the top job.

“I was young. I was hungry. I was ready to take on the world,” said O’Connell, who played under Gabby Price at Bangor High School. “Then we got blown out 48-0 in our first game.”

Two straight wins followed, lighting the spark for the first of three consecutive 3-6 seasons.

John Bapst broke through with a playoff appearance in 2006, then pushed eventual state champion Foxcroft to the limit last fall with a 13-12 regular-season loss and a 14-7 defeat in the Eastern Class C final.

“We lost a great group of seniors, and I think a lot of people wondered, ‘How will Bapst do it again?’ ” O’Connell said. “But we stayed focused. Nineteen of our kids went to the University of Maine camp. Fourteen went to the big-man’s camp at Bates. The fewest we had for any of our summer workouts was 18.”

In contrast to Winthrop, whose senior-dominated starting lineup has fueled anticipation of this title run since they were in eighth grade, John Bapst doesn’t rely on a feeder system.

Students hail from more than 25 communities in the Penobscot River valley.

“We never know about enrollment until after the school year ends and people fill out paperwork and mail their deposits,” O’Connell said. “I literally don’t know for sure what we’re going to have for freshmen until the day we get to camp.”

O’Connell admitted that his magic touch didn’t quite heal his alma mater. Bates’ only non losing season in the last 27 years came in 1999 – the year after he graduated – when the Bobcats went 4-4.

As part of the student search committee that helped hire coach Mark Harriman prior to his senior year, O’Connell is proud to say that the Bobcats haven’t revisited the stigma of a winless season in Harriman’s 11-year tenure.

“I know they haven’t enjoyed the most success in terms of wins and losses, but he’s a great man and the right person for that job,” O’Connell said. “We beat Colby twice and beat Bowdoin during my career. Those remain some of the greatest experiences in my life.”

He hopes those memories will have some new competition later today.