It’s not a familiar position for Jay, but it’s one that has the Tigers — the coaching staff, at least — quite excited.

“This is about as young as we’ve been in a while,” coach Jane DiPompo said. “We’re holding tough at .500 right now.”

Four games into the season, the Tigers have cobbled together a pair of wins relying heavily on their team defense while breaking in what amounts to an entirely new front end.

“Our focus has been on defense,” DiPompo said. “They keep us in the games, and with that kind of a philosophy, our goal is to be competitive.”

Jay has been that, and then some. The Tigers have counted a pair of shutout wins this season, one against Hall-Dale (1-0) and one against Dirigo (3-0).

“We have four seniors and four juniors, seven sophomores and nine freshmen on the team,” DiPompo said. “We’re loaded with young players right now.”

Three of those players — sophomore Rachel Calden and freshmen Kayla Meserve and Randi Duguay — have the team’s four goals this season, with Calden in the driver’s seat with two.

Every game we play at this point,” DiPompo said, “will help us build for the future, and hopefully even this year in the playoffs.”

Lost in the shuffle

With a team as powerful this year as it was last year, it’s hard for the Winthrop Ramblers to run away and hide anywhere.

But looking quickly at the Western Class C standings is misleading. All but three Class C squads in the Mountain Valley Conference is listed there — one of them being Winthrop, which recently migrated to Eastern Class C, though the Ramblers continue to play a Western C schedule.

Livermore Falls, a perennial contender and last year a Western C semifinalist, sits atop the Western C standings, less than two points ahead of WMC power NYA, also an undefeated team at 4-0.

Winthrop has also navigated the first one-third of its schedule unbeaten, though a showdown looms with another top MVC contender, Telstar, on Wednesday.

Still unbeaten

Only a handful of teams around the state can still boast a perfect ‘0’ in the loss column. That list is, as usual, headed by perennial powerhouse Skowhegan, which is 4-0 to date in Eastern Class A.

Eastern B still has four teams without a blemish, including John Bapst, Mount View, Camden Hills and Gardiner, while Winthrop remains the lone Eastern Class C squad.

In Western A, Cheverus, Bonny Eagle, Westbrook and Scarborough continue to set the standard. In Western B, York and Leavitt remain without a loss, though York has played more games. And Livermore Falls and NYA have each won all four of their games in Western C.