Biddeford High field hockey Coach Caitlin Tremberth huddles her team between games at a preseason scrimmage last week. The Tigers won the Class A South championship in 2018. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer
Coach Paula Doughty has led the Skowhegan High field hockey team to the Class A state championship game for each of the last 18 years. Biddeford’s Caitlin Tremberth is simply trying to figure out how to get her team back to the title game again this year.
The Tigers won the state Class A championship last fall, defeating Skowhegan 4-3, and loom once again as the team to beat in Class A South. But in the South, it’s not so easy to repeat.
Five different teams – Scarborough, Thornton Academy, Massabesic, Westbrook and Biddeford – have claimed the regional title the last five years, bringing the number of teams to face Skowhegan in the state title game to 12 since its historic streak began in 2001.
This year? Tremberth has stressed to her players that nothing is guaranteed.
“They know,” she said. “They know that every game this year is going to be a challenge. And we want that. It prepares you for, hopefully, a push later in the season.”
Coaches in Class A South say that field hockey has never been better in the area. Teams are more closely matched. Players are more talented.
Kerry Mariello led Scarborough to three consecutive Class A regional titles from 2012-14. Since then, no champion has repeated. “I think this is the strongest league we’ve ever had,” she said of Class A South in 2019. Gabe Souza/Staff file photo
“I think this is the strongest league we’ve ever had,” said Kerry Mariello, in her 18th year at Scarborough. “There’s not a team that will completely dominate. And there’s not a team you can walk over. Everyone has that core group of special talents.”
Coaches agree that the addition of year-round club field hockey teams has been a big reason for the parity. More players are playing year-round, providing an increasingly stronger talent base. At one time, the best field hockey club teams were in the central or northern Maine areas with Maine Majestix or Black Bear Elite. Now players in southern Maine have choices: Maine Styx Field Hockey, Coastal Field Hockey, Maine Elite Field Hockey Club and Seacoast United Field Hockey Club.
“The last five years, kids are spending a lot of time playing the game year-round,” said Lori Smith, in her 22nd year as the coach at Thornton Academy. “The skill level has really gone up. It’s exploded.”
Gorham Coach Becky Manson-Rioux said she’s had more players “playing club hockey in the last two, three years then I ever had in the past,” mostly at Maine Styx and Coastal.
The nature of field hockey also plays into the parity. “I think field hockey is completely a team-oriented sport,” said Cheverus Coach Theresa Hendrix. “You can’t have just two players carry a team.”
“Any time you have a goal sport, that can be an issue,” said Massabesic Coach Michele Martin-Moore, whose Mustangs won only five games last year but bear watching as a contender this fall. “You have a goal sport, you can dominate a game 95 percent and if that one shot that they have goes in and the 30 shots you have get turned away, you lose the game. You run into a hot goalie, you’re in trouble. It’s a crazy sport that we coach and love.”
There have been teams that have successfully defended regional titles in Class A South (or West as it was once called), Scarborough doing it twice: in 2008-09 and three in a row from 2012-14.
Diana Walker, now in her 36th season at Sanford High, won three consecutive regional titles from 1999-2001. “Everyone is out to get you,” she said of trying to repeat. “And it’s hard to get your kids to understand that just because you won, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again.” Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
Diana Walker, in her 36th season as head coach at Sanford (where she won three consecutive regional titles from 1999-2001), said it takes a special group to repeat.
“Everyone is out to get you,” said Walker. “And it’s hard to get your kids to understand that just because you won, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again.”
Thornton’s Smith likes the parity of the South. “I think it’s exciting,” she said. “It’s like you go into a season and it’s anybody’s championship. That’s motivating for the kids.”
Krista Chase, in her sixth year at Mt. Ararat (after eight as head coach at Cony), understands that. But playing in Skowhegan’s region has its own motivation.
“There’s a part of me that says, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to play in a different league where we might be able to make a little more noise?’ ” said Chase, who has never beaten Doughty. “But another part of me says that I want to beat Skowhegan some day.”
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