GSA seniors on remarkable run Select group played in 7 straight EM championship games

For Mike Astbury and his classmates on the George Stevens Academy baseball team, high school couldn’t have had a better ending.

Astbury was one of 11 seniors for the Eagles who defeated Jay 2-0 on Monday, behind sophomore lefthander Dan Hilts, to win the state Class C baseball championship.

For most of those seniors, the title ended a remarkable run for the boys athletic teams at the Blue Hill school.

“It’s incredible,” said Astbury, the Eagles’ left fielder. “We’ve been to seven straight Eastern Maine games. We’ve won four of them, and we’ve won two states [in basketball and baseball].

“It’s a great way to go out, winning our last game.”

The run began in the spring of 2001, when the Eagles reached the Eastern C baseball final. That was followed by EM final appearances in soccer and basketball before the 2002 GSA baseball team claimed the first regional title of the run.

Last fall, the Eagles’ soccer team won the Eastern C championship, and then the school’s basketball and baseball teams surmounted the final obstacles and won state championships.

And that run doesn’t even include another dominant spring sports squad, the two-time reigning Eastern C champion GSA boys tennis team.

Monday’s narrow baseball victory likely had some of its foundation in the Eagles’ earlier trips to championship games.

For if there were nerves Monday, they didn’t show.

“[The experience] helped me a lot because I just stayed relaxed the whole game instead of getting ahead of myself,” said senior shortstop Mark Clapp. “We’ve been ahead before and let leads slip away, but here I just stayed calm the whole time, until the last two outs.”

The collective success of the Eagles’ Class of 2003 doesn’t come as a shock to those who have led them.

“A lot of these guys have played three sports,” said GSA baseball coach Dan Kane. “You see the success they’ve had, and if you saw them walking down the hall in school and see what kind of character they have, you wouldn’t be surprised.

“They show up to practice to work every day. They make the job of coaching them very easy.”

McLellan eager for college

Ryan McLellan’s decision to accept a full athletic scholarship from Franklin Pierce College in Rindge, N.H., this fall wasn’t complicated.

“It’s going to be nice not to have to pay $100,000 in student loans back when I get out of college,” said McLellan, the former Nokomis of Newport basketball standout. “When they say you can come here for free and play basketball, it’s kind of a no-brainer.”

The Corinna resident was a thorn in many an opposing coach’s brain throughout his high school basketball career, becoming the career scoring leader at Nokomis and earning first-team Bangor Daily News All-Maine honors as a senior. In his final season with the Warriors, the 6-foot guard averaged 22 points and five rebounds per game in leading coach Jim DiFrederico’s club to the Eastern A semifinals.

McLellan will be the latest in a series of former Maine high school standouts to play at Franklin Pierce under fifth-year head coach David Chadbourne, himself a graduate of Wells High School and St. Joseph’s College in Standish.

Next season, McLellan will join former Hampden Academy standout Derek Rodgerson and ex-Mount Ararat star Jimmie Hunt on the Ravens’ roster. In addition, McLellan said former Bangor High guard Tom Waterman, who played at Franklin Pierce last season, is expected to join Chadbourne’s coaching staff next winter.

Franklin Pierce is an NCAA Division II program that plays in the Northeast 10 Conference. Last season, the Ravens finished 14-15 overall, 11-11 in conference play.

Cony’s Cloutier resigns

Cony High School of Augusta is looking for a new varsity baseball coach after Al Cloutier stepped down at the end of the 2003 campaign, ending a successful eight-year run.

Under Cloutier, Cony won Eastern Maine Class A championships in 1998 and 1999 and reached the regional final five times. The Rams finished 17-3 this season, reaching the EM semifinals before being ousted by Oxford Hills of South Paris.

A Cony and Husson College graduate, Cloutier played on the 1971 Augusta East team that advanced to the Little League World Series.

Cloutier also has ended a 15-year stint as head coach of the Augusta American Legion baseball team, a traditional powerhouse in Zone 2. Cloutier hasn’t left baseball altogether, as he is serving as the Zone 2 commissioner this summer.

Ernie Clark may be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or eclark@bangordailynews.net