Attitude puts Katahdin at the top

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You gotta love it. A coach with a sense of humor.

Each year, the NEWS asks coaches to file roster forms with us so we know who is on their teams, and how to spell the names.

One name would never see the light of day, were it not for the fact it states the obvious with such good humor.

On the girls’ soccer roster supplied by Katahdin High School of Sherman Station, the name on the line for head coach reads: “Bob Dyer.”

The line below, for assistant coach reads: “I Wish!!”

Congratulations to Bob Dyer and “I Wish!!” They’ve done a great job with the Cougars this year, taking them all the way to the state Class C championship game Saturday with Falmouth.

Attitude. That’s what made the difference this year, Dyer said.

Remember, these Eastern Maine champions are no strangers to big-game competition. The seniors have been in a regional title game every year. They were runnersup as juniors, EM champs and state runnersup as sophomores, and regional runnersup as freshmen.

For the record, Dyer and “I Wish!!” have been in eight straight regional championships.

“We’ve lost some tough ones,” he said. “Sometimes with good teams, and sometimes with teams that shouldn’t have been able to get there, but did.”

Dyer wasn’t sure Katahdin would be there this year.

“We hoped to get into the playoffs, and then maybe we could prove we were good enough,” he said.

Good enough? You bet. The team has an attitude that mirrors the coach. It includes a sense of humor. Take the pre-game warmup and “the song,” for example.

“We sing `Down in the Boondocks’ before every game,” said Carmin Kelley, one of the senior captains. Sometimes, they use it for wind sprints and hill work.

Kelley is the songleader. “We have this circle drill where we lay down in the middle of the field,” she explained. “I start it, then run around the circle and jump over eyeryone and then everyone follows me around.”

Don’t they get wet if it’s raining? “Sure, but we’re big on sliding tackles, and we’re going to be muddy and wet anyway. It really gets us psyched.”

OK. That I understand. But then there’s “the fetus.”

After each goal, it’s back on the ground again. The girls run onto the field and roll around in a position someone thought looked like a fetal position. Thus, “the fetus.”

Whatever it is, and whatever you call it, it works for Katahdin.

But junior wing Tara Pocock knows more than attitude got her team into the states.

“I think we have a really good goalie,” she said of senior Carrie Jo McNally. “I’ve heard Falmouth has a good scoring threat. The goalie will make the difference.”

Incentive helps, if you want to rise to the top. Old rival Schenck of East Millinocket lent a hand there. “We just wanted to beat Schenck,” Pocock said of the No. 3 Cougars upsetting No. 2 Schenck in the semifinal. Schenck won the regional last year.

Attitude served them well as the season wound down, Dyer said of “three tough games at the end” with Schenck, Ashland and Class B Houlton. “We won all three, and seemed to peak for the playoffs.”

I am touched by the attitude of two players who don’t let anything stop them.

Pocock’s “really good goalie,” has asthma. That’s why McNally is in goal. She doesn’t have the wind to be a field player.

Senior Sara Robinson wasn’t on the original roster because a heart problem kept her from passing her physical. She persisted, passed it, and plays.

The seniors, who felt they should have won last year, are the backbone of this team. They’re responsible for the attitude and the spirit, Dyer said.

They’re also responsible for the song and rolling around in the mud and muck and mire, which probably leads to extra work in the laundry at the Dyer and Kelley households.

When the coach’s daughters, Jodi and Jinger, come home, and Carmin and Jill toss their uniforms into the Kelley washing machine, it works overtime.

But that’s a small price to pay for girls who upset their way to the top, beating No. 1 Hodgdon, for the regional title.

It is obvious Coach Bob Dyer knows what high school sports is all about – having a good time.

“It really is more fun,” he said, “to go in third, then come up through and win it.”