Neither rain nor wind, frigid temperatures, blistering sun, nor long distances could keep him from the court. If the Bangor boys tennis team was playing he was courtside.

Fans and parents alike always found themselves looking for him at matches and usually didn’t have to look long or hard to spot him – almost always on his familiar perch atop the hood of a team member’s Chevy Suburban.

He was known as the Garden Gnome, or G-Nome for short. After witnessing – some would even say orchestrating – the Rams’ unbeaten and first-ever state championship season, they should call him gnome sweet gnome.

Garden Gnome was a two-foot tall ceramic figure which Bangor senior Pat Frazier purchased at a flea market last summer. He was also the unofficial team mascot.

“Everyone started calling me that last year, so I bought him when I saw him at the Machias Blueberry Festival,” said Frazier, who was given the nickname because of his short stature. “He’s an overseer. He’s kind of a divine presence for us.”

Well, he was … Right up until he was dashed to bits on the Deering Oaks Park court by freshman team member and top singles player Bryan Brown in a ceremonial celebration of Bangor’s dramatic 3-2 win over two-time defending Class A state champion Deering of Portland Saturday afternoon.

“We didn’t want to say it out loud, but we knew something special was going to happen to him if we won it all,” said senior No. 2 singles player Kyle “Green Hornet” Cutshall, who figured prominently in Bangor’s win with a three-set comeback victory of his own. “If we hadn’t won, we probably would have passed it on to next year’s team.”

G-Nome was already hobbled before his dramatic demise as his right arm was broken off after Frazier’s senior doubles partner Bret Brookings (nickname Brettski) accidentally kicked him over when he and his teammates erupted from their seated positions outside the court area once Brown won the deciding point of his 21/2-hour match.

It was Brown’s dramatic, three-set comeback win over Pat Conway that gave Bangor the title. Conway was the state’s top singles player, a junior who hadn’t dropped a set or match all year, and the guy who had beaten Brown in straight sets (6-0, 7-5) in the state singles tourney quarterfinals just three weeks earlier.

“Bret and I didn’t play good tennis today and I thought we were done. We’d already lost two matches and I saw Bryan warming up with the state singles champion,” Frazier said. “Kyle was down a set and down 5-2 in the third set, but he came back. Bryan was down 5-1 in the tiebreaker and he came back, so I think the whole time the gnome was helping us.

“There are very few people who can walk out on that court and do what he did. It’s the most special thing I’ve ever seen. I never expected Bryan to win, but winning today … I can’t thank him enough.”

Given how his teammates treated Bangor’s other championship catalyst, the fact that Brown avoided a fate similar to G-Nome’s is probably thanks enough.

Clash of the tennis titans

Last week’s Eastern Maine Class B championship match between the Ellsworth and Caribou girls was already significant since both came in unbeaten, but it was also historically significant as it marked the first postseason meeting of two of the East’s top tennis powers.

Until this season, such a meeting was impossible as Ellsworth has been the beast of the East in Class B while Caribou has been a perennial Class A power. But after Caribou’s declining enrollment forced the Vikings to move down to the B ranks, the move made such a clash a reality.

“Our enrollment’s down, but even so, I wanted to stick in Class A because I was comfortable there, I knew the coaches and the teams, and we were competitive, which I was proud of. But this may turn out to be good for us,” said Caribou coach John Habeeb.

That wasn’t the case Thursday as Ellsworth easily handled the young Vikings with a 5-0 win, but Caribou still has bragging rights.

The Eagles own an impressive regular-season win streak, which now stands at 69, but it still pales in comparison to the Vikings’ 132-game regular season win streak which stretches back 11 years.

And while Ellsworth’s win put them ahead of Caribou with seven Eastern Maine titles to Caribou’s six, Caribou again gets to boast with four state championships (1992-1995) to Ellsworth’s 0.

“Yeah, and they have a much younger team than we do so they could be the favorite next year,” said Ellsworth coach Brian Higgins, who returns three players.

Sounds like the makings of a solid rivalry.

Caterina realizes American dream

Former two-time NEWS All-Maine first-team selection and Deering of Portland graduate Jamaal Caterina has accepted a full athletic scholarship to attend American University in Washington, D.C. this fall.

After leading the Rams to their first regional basketball title in 64 years as a senior, Caterina decided to turn down several full and partial scholarship offers in hopes of improving his game and attracting the interest of Division I coaches with a year of prep school. Caterina attended Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, N.H.

The 6-foot-5 guard-forward was named Mr. Maine Basketball for the 2000-01 season after finishing his high school hoops career as Deering’s all-time leading scorer with 1,513 points. He plans to study sociology and pre-law at American.

Friendly adversaries

Saturday’s Class B state championship boys tennis match between Ellsworth and Cape Elizabeth was also a reunion of sorts.

Head coaches Brian Higgins of Ellsworth and Andy Strout of Cape Elizabeth share a lot of history.

“It’s always good to see Brian here,” said Strout. He runs a class program and he and I are good friends.”

Of course, Higgins could be forgiven if he didn’t feel the same way about Strout, whose Capers girls teams had beaten the Eagles in all six of their state-final meetings. This year, Strout returned to states as just the boys coach.

“It’s kind of nice because it’s tough to try and keep track of eight or more matches at once,” Strout said.

It certainly seemed to agree with him as Strout’s squad beat Ellsworth 4-1. The win gives him a 2-1 record against Higgins in boys state-final confrontations, but don’t expect any hard feelings.

“No, we’d never have that. We have too many things in common,” said Higgins.

Each has served as both the boys and girls tennis coach at the same time for their respective schools, both teach physical education, both also coach boys varsity soccer, and both graduated from Springfield (Mass.) College before going on to teach.

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600 or aneff@bangordailynews.net.