Playing in the Class C state championship has been a regular occurrence in recent years for the Telstar softball team.

So has waiting through rain outs.

Saturday’s Class C state championship game at Coffin Field was postponed to Monday because of rainy weather and bad field conditions. Monday’s game between Telstar and Dexter has been scheduled for 7 p.m.

“We would have rather played (Saturday), but with the funeral and everything, I thought they might just push it back to Monday anyway,” Telstar coach Jim Lunney said.

Saturday’s originally scheduled game had already been moved back from a noon start to a 7 p.m. gametime. Because of this week’s tragedy in the Dexter community, the Maine Principal’s Association rescheduled the game to accommodate the funeral service at Dexter for the Lake family Saturday morning.

“We thought it would just be thunder showers and that we could get up there and play,” Lunney said. “My pitcher Kayla (Merrill) was selected to play in the Maine-New Hampshire all-star game (Monday). So she’s going to miss that. There’s always possibilities like this. The Brewer field doesn’t take water as well as other fields.”

This is the Rebels’ fifth trip to the state final in the last seven years. All three times Telstar has been scheduled to play at Coffin Field in Brewer, the game has been postponed at least once.

“We haven’t had good luck up there,” Lunney said.

In 2009, when Telstar was scheduled to play Calais, that game was postponed three different times. When it was finally able to be played, rainy weather interrupted the game and was a factor in the Rebels 8-6 loss.

In 2005, against Central, the game was rained out and postponed until the following Monday. Central won that game, 2-1.

In both 2006 and 2010, Telstar rebounded to win the state title at Saint Joseph’s College.

Telstar has not won a state game hosted in Eastern Maine since the Rebels beat Madawaska 11-0 in 1991. Even that game was washed out initially.

“We’d gotten all the way up there and they had played the Class A game and decided they couldn’t play the C game,” said Lunney. “We got washed out on Saturday and played on Monday at Orono. The staff did a real good job to get the field ready.”

Lunney has nine seniors that were part of the team two years ago. After that squad got washed out, they had already reached Hampden the following Monday before finding out the game had been rescheduled. After another day of rain, the game was postponed a third time.

This change of plans is nothing new for the Rebels.

“They should be fine,” said Lunney. “We’ll go up there and hope to play well. What happens happens. We’ll be ready to do and do the best we can.”

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