Softball coach calm chasing elusive title

Mike Carrier had been planning to leave his home in Orland and drive to Brewer to watch the Class B state softball championship game between Erskine Academy of South China and Greely when the phone rang, delaying his trip for a few minutes.

You’d think Carrier had seen enough of Erskine pitcher Katie Mainville. For the last three years, Mainville has beaten Bucksport in the Eastern Maine championship game. The last two she didn’t allow the Golden Bucks a single hit.

“Jeez. I think all we had against her was a bunt back to her and a foul ball,” Carrier said, referring to his team’s encounter with Mainville last Friday.

But it hasn’t just been Mainville who has stepped in the way, blocking Bucksport’s path to the state championship game.

During Carrier’s 12 years coaching the team, Bucksport has reached the Eastern Maine championship game nine times including the last seven, I repeat, the last seven in a row, without winning the title.

But the latest game, well …

“It [topped] itself the other day. It was the most frustrating game I’ve been involved in. [Mainville] was just too good. I knew it would come down to a mistake. I had just hoped it wouldn’t be us who made it this time,” Carrier said.

But it was. This time a couple of errors and too much Mainville gave the Bucks that sense of loss and finality that they’ve become all too accustomed to.

Carrier has seen it all. He has seen his teams lose games they should have easily won. He’s seen them lose games before they were actually played. Once his players psyched themselves out because an assistant coach who had not ridden the team bus all year decided to ride it to the Eastern Maine championship game.

“They couldn’t believe he was on the bus. It had become a superstition. We lost the game before the players ever got off the bus,” Carrier said.

And then there was the time they climbed off the bus at an EM title game only to be greeted by a couple of supporters who were stirring up trouble. They told the players that one of their assistant coaches had been sitting with the opposing team’s head coach for quite a while – telling team secrets.

It was ridiculous, of course. The two coaches were friends and merely were visiting together before the game. But the Bucksport players had been distracted to the point that Carrier couldn’t bring their minds back to the game.

“Every single year, it seems like there’s something. I’ve made mistakes. There’s outside interference. I mean, it can’t be any different than any other team but it seems to hit us hard,” Carrier said.

Carrier, 46, knows a little bit about the game. He’s been involved in softball since he was “about 20” and was a Bucksport assistant for eight years before becoming head coach in 1990. His teams have racked up the incredible record of 197 wins and 28 losses with 12 of those losses coming in the playoffs. His teams have lost just 16, I repeat, 16 regular season games in 12 years.

Carrier has a reputation for developing pitchers and the list of pitchers at Bucksport during his tenure is like a Who’s Who of Maine high school softball. The list includes Jen Wardwell, Marci Smith, Kara Ready, Kelly Downs, Nikki Sheehan, Annette Caswell and Kelly White.

“Those were some great, great pitchers,” Carrier acknowledges. And although he’s quite proud of his involvement in their development as pitchers, Carrier doesn’t pound his chest about. That’s just not his style. He has a laid-back approach to coaching.

“I’ve tried every single angle there is. But this is the way I coach. It’s the way I’ve had really good success. It doesn’t do any good to be tough with them. And I don’t think it really makes any difference once it comes to the playoffs. We’ve had seasons where we couldn’t get any luck and then a season we couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn and we won,” Carrier said.

It’s strange to ask a coach with the record Carrier has accumulated when he is going to have the breakout year, the one in which he finally overcomes the EM championship game stumble. It’s almost like asking Phil Mickelson when he will finally win a major.

“I thought it was this year,” Carrier said. “You never know. It could be next year. You never know. We could have a down year and go [into the playoffs] with six losses and go all the way. You never know. But we’ll be there. We’ll be right in the thick of it.”

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net.