Seven years after she began her quest to turn Old Town into a statewide cheerleading powerhouse, Kristen Braun has decided to take some time off.

In 14 varsity seasons (seven fall, seven winter), Braun has transformed the Indians’ program from a low-funded afterthought to one of the most respected teams in Maine.

“It was the hardest and saddest thing I’ve done, but I knew it was the right thing,” said Braun, wife of Old Town football coach Ian Braun. “I want to go to graduate school and it dawned on me that this was my opportunity because the timing was perfect.”

It became perfect after a chance meeting at the Old Town Dairy Queen between one of Braun’s cheerleaders, who was working there, and Kate Loveless, who was working as a National Cheerleaders Association camp instructor.

Loveless, who cheered at Oxford Hills High School and the University of Maine, found out from the girl that Old Town was involved in a July practice and decided to visit.

Braun spotted her at the practice, pulled her aside, and asked her if she was still cheering at Maine. Since she wasn’t, Braun then asked if Loveless was interested in applying for her job if she resigned. She said she was.

“For me to step aside, it had to be for someone very qualified,” Braun explained. “There’s nothing in my life I want to do that couldn’t wait a couple years, but when I saw all the conditions were in place for me to be able to leave, I had to take advantage of it because there’s no guarantee it would happen again.”

Loveless has big shoes to fill as Braun has led the Indians from anonymity to elite status with two state championships, two regional titles, three Penobscot Valley Conference crowns, and two Big East titles in the last five winter seasons. Her crowning year was 2000, when the Indians won all four postseason competitions.

“It’s much, much different now then when I came, and that’s what I’m most proud of,” Braun said. “When I first started, we didn’t even have uniforms, so we had to raise money for them ourselves.”

Old Town gets a bit younger

After going without a freshman football team the last two seasons, Old Town is not fielding a JV team this fall. The news isn’t as bad as it sounds, though, as the freshman team is now back.

“It wasn’t unexpected since our freshman and sophomore classes have been low the last two years,” said Old Town varsity coach Ian Braun. “This year we have 18 freshmen and nine sophomores.”

The nine sophomores playing football will be allowed to play on the freshman team.

“I don’t think anyone else has dropped their JV, but John Bapst, MDI and Stearns are some of the teams playing with sophomores on the freshman team,” Braun said.

Braun figures it’s better for his sophomores and freshmen to play against teams with similar makeups instead of fielding a bunch of underclassmen on JV against other teams’ more experienced seniors and juniors.

The overall turnout for the Indians’ entire football program is actually up 10 this year to 48.

Green Mountain workout

Hampden Academy junior Oriana Farley didn’t rest on her laurels this summer. Her first-place finish in Saturday’s Ellsworth Invitational race attests to that.

The Broncos’ standout distance specialist did a lot of track work and attended summer meets, but didn’t have much of a chance to work on her stamina.

“I probably didn’t do any serious mileage stuff until the end of July,” said Farley, who finished second last year and third her freshman year at the Ellsworth race.

What she lacked in mileage she made up for during one particularly grueling week last month.

“The second week in August, Molly Balentine, Amelia Potvin and I went to Vermont to a cross country camp,” the 16-year-old Farley explained. “We did a lot of hill work in the Green Mountains and I think that really helped catch me up with my mileage and stuff.”

It’s hard to argue with the results: Farley ran the 2.96-mile race in 17 minutes, 43 seconds; Potvin was sixth (18:59), and Balentine ninth (19:13) as Hampden won the meet for a second straight year.

All that extra hill work has made everything else seem easier.

“Even just in everyday practice, the hills we used to think were monstrous don’t seem like anything now because that week, it was just pure hills,” said Farley.

Vikings stop coaching carousel?

East Grand High School in Danforth has its fourth girls varsity basketball coach in three seasons with the hiring of former University of Maine-Fort Kent assistant coach Wade McLaughlin.

McLaughlin replaces Renee Shain, who replaced Joanna Hamilton in the middle of the 2000-2001 season after Hamilton resigned to take a job promotion at the Georgia-Pacific Corp.’s paper mill in Woodland. Hamilton took over for Ainsley McPhee, who was let go by the school after a month on the job, in December of 1999.

McLaughlin also took a position as educational technician at the high school and may also coach middle school soccer.

East Grand athletic director Troy Cilley said he thinks the Limestone native will help solidify the unstable varsity position.

“I do. He’s been in coaching for 11 years and he’s just been waiting for the right situation to come along,” he said. “He knows our team, he has high hopes for this year, and he’s looking toward the future.”

Andrew Neff’s High School Report is published each Wednesday. He can be reached at 990-8205 or aneff@bangordailynews.net.