JAY — Amid the change, the Spruce Mountain boys’ soccer team’s focus stayed the same Tuesday night.

After a tumultuous few days following the resignation of their head coach after the season-opener last Friday, the Phoenix moved on and moved forward in a 5-0 loss against Gardiner.

Willie Brown has taken the helm on an interim basis and had the team focusing on the here and now.

“I don’t think anything really changed,” said Brown, who began the season as the JV coach, his first coaching job out of college. “I think the boys just came to work today, just like they do every other day. I think they pride themselves on coming here and working every day. That’s something we instilled in preseason and last week. They’ve worked so hard. That’s a testament to them and their character here.”

Coach Larry Thornton resigned Friday after Spruce Mountain’s first game, a 6-1 loss at Leavitt. It was his first game back with the program as varsity head coach. Brown, a multiple sport athlete at Livermore Falls, learned Monday evening that he was coaching the team for the time being.

“I’ve just kept carrying out the same process and the same game plan that we have been doing,” Brown said. “We might have moved some guys around to try different positions. I thought they played a heck of a game. I have no complaints with their efforts tonight. I think they played a full hard 80 minutes against a very good team.”

Athletic administrator Lee Hixon, a former state championship-winning coach at St. Dom’s, ran the Phoenix’s practice Monday. He said the head coaching job will be posted for two weeks. Candidates will be reviewed and interviewed during that time. Hixon said the hope is to have a new head coach at some point this season.

The Phoenix stayed with Gardiner through the first half Tuesday. Spruce Mountain hung tough and was down 2-0 at the half.

“We’re just trying to come together and play at the KVAC level,” senior midfielder Shane Missler said. “We’re just trying to stick with what we’ve been doing. There’s no big changes to what we’ve been doing. We just go out and keep going at it.”

Gardiner got its first goal 14:30 into the game when Kaleb Marston put in a shot off a rebound from the crossbar. The Phoenix generated some pressure late in the half and had a few opportunities, but the Tigers made it 2-0 with 7:22 left. Josh Caldwell finished off a Peter Delgallo pass.

Gardiner broke things open in the second half. Jake Folsom scored just 1:49. Then Alex LaBonte added a pair later in the half.

Spruce Mountain got a solid game in net from Nick Guild. The team in front of him played hard and kept battling. Despite the loss, the Phoenix felt encouraged by the progress they’d made since Friday’s loss.

“The communication was there,” senior co-captain Adam Wilcox said. “People worked a lot more, playing for 80 minutes. People were working hard in general.”

As if debuting in the KVAC wasn’t challenging enough, the Phoenix are now dealing a coaching change they never expected. Still, Spruce Mountain plays on and hopes to improve no matter what. They host Nokomis Friday afternoon.

“We’re reminding ourselves that there are winnable games and we intend to go in winning,” Missler . “We’re going to go in hard 100 percent the whole game no matter the situation.”said

kmills@sunjournal.com

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