SANFORD – It’s that time of year again. You can feel it in the ground as an exhausted soccer team rumbles by doing laps. You can hear it in the air in the steady cadence of hit after grueling hit in football drills. And you can see it in the eyes of the players – determination, grit, toughness, and a willingness to go the distance.
Whatever happened last year is history.
Now, they’re just ready to tear into 2011.
“Practices have been going pretty good,” said Sanford senior Natalie Ladue, who is captain of the Redskin field hockey team. “I think everyone is doing pretty well. I feel like we are working a little harder than last season – we lost a good group of girls, so I think we have some work to do.”
All these teams have a story, and as much as preseason is about bonding, training and getting back into the swing of routine, there is almost a collective mending process going on as well. Whether the results of last year were good or bad – and in leagues where success is arguably measured in championships, most teams have room to improve – they’re over now. It is time to look beyond failure and grasp at triumph once more.
One particular team that is working hard to put their collective best foot forward is Massabesic football. The Mustangs were 0-8 last year, and the memory of that fruitless struggle is a still bitter one. Under the direction of Head Coach John Morin, the senior class of Massabesic is stepping up to lead this team back to the promised land – and the first brick in that road is to forget 2010.
“Last year there were a lot of things wrong, mainly character-wise,” said Massabesic senior running back Sam Chaves. “There were just decisions that a lot of us made off the field that carried onto the field, plus in-game mistakes that we would make that shouldn’t be made. But this year we are shoring up a lot of things, and hopefully we don’t have the same problems. This year is going noticeably better than this time last year.”
“Last year we were great physically, but a lot of the mental stuff – just getting the plays right – wasn’t there,” Chaves said. “We travel to Portland first, and I think we match up with them pretty well. We’re going to go in there and try to come away with a win. I am really looking forward to the start of the season; I am pumped. I am so pumped for that first game.”
Other teams have the opposite problem. After going 15 games into the 2010 season without allowing a single opposing goal, Scarborough girls soccer swept through the playoffs and took home the state title with a 3-0 win over Bangor. At the time, the Red Storm felt almost like a force of nature; their victory nearly assured. Now, back at square one, Scarborough must also forget the past to move forward.
“It was a great achievement to win the state title,” said senior defender Erica Bellefleur “But we still want it just as much as we did last year. We are still motivated – we just have to stay together as a team, and keep telling ourselves that just because we’ve done it once doesn’t mean we’re going to do it again.”
Elsewhere, Thornton Academy’s girls’ soccer is dealing with two unrelated stories: their growing name as a power to be dealt with in the west, and an unfinished field-turf surface at their stadium. The then-upstart Trojans shocked the league by going to the state title game in 2009, then proved that they were hardly one-and-done the following season by making it back to the Western finals. Now Thornton Academy is looking to finally break through and claim that elusive title.
We felt accomplished coming out of last year, and kind of excited for this year just to see how things go,” said senior captain Katilyn Coburn. “Last year we ended in second place in the Western Maine finals. We made it to the state title the year before, and we have definitely pushed ourselves to make it further as a team, and as far as how close we are. I definitely think that (having gone so far the past two years) makes us push a lot harder to make it there again, because I know that we know we can do it.”
As for the field turf, Coburn said that she is eager to get on it. As of last week, the work on the new surface was still not complete at Hill Stadium, although it was expected to be finished within the week.
“I think it’s good for us,” Coburn said. “We have played on turf before – it’s not like we never play on turf – but now we can practice on it. Turf hurts more to fall on, but the ball moves a lot faster. All the state championships are held on turf, so I think it will actually be an advantage for us.”
One thing that is universal, however, is the desire to get to the real meat of the season. Practices and scrimmages can only sate the thirst for a challenge so much; eventually, a real contest is needed, but for now the players will be working hard on honing their bodies as well as their minds.
“We spent the first week of practice at Bridgeton Academy, and we did a lot of good work out there, and learned a lot of stuff,” Chaves said. “We mainly learned a lot of those plays that the younger guys have to learn, where they get the experience and get the reps in.”
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