MPA announces sites for soccer title games

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The Maine Principals’ Association soccer committee has selected sites for this Saturday’s state soccer championships.

Both boys and girls games for each classification will be held at the same site. For all classifications, game times are 10 a.m. for the boys and 1 p.m. for the girls.

The Class A games are set for Windham High School. The Mount Ararat of Topsham boys and girls face Scarborough and Greely, respectively.

The Class B championships will be held at Morse High School in Bath, where the Winslow boys take on Falmouth. The Belfast girls meet Yarmouth.

The Class C state finals site is Hampden Academy. The games will be held at the artificial turf field behind the George Weatherbee School.

The Dexter boys play Georges Valley of Thomaston, while the Houlton girls square off against North Yarmouth.

The Class D games are set for MBNA’s Point Lookout field in Northport. The MBNA field is also artificial turf.

The Waynflete boys and girls of Portland will take on Machias and Lee Academy, respectively, for the Class D titles.

Admission prices for all state championship games are $7 for adults and $4 for students. Ticket prices are set by the MPA, not the host schools.

Monkey sparks Tigers, again

When asked if there was anything that helped the Dexter field hockey team break a tie and go on to a win in Saturday’s Class C state championship game Vanessa Hartford was quick to answer.

“I think it was the rally monkey,” said Hartford, who scored a goal in the 5-1 win over St. Dominic of Auburn, the Tigers’ fourth straight state title.

The big beige stuffed monkey, a rallying point for the Tigers during last year’s drive to the state title (the same idea as the Anaheim Angels’ rally monkey during the 2002 World Series) was sitting on a bus in the Gorham High parking lot.

Dexter coach Margaret Veazie didn’t take the monkey down to the field with her before the game, but at halftime the Tigers found themselves in a 1-1 tie with the Saints.

“I asked the girls if they wanted the rally monkey,” she said. “I brought it, but I didn’t use it because I wanted to stay with new stuff. I said, “Do we need the rally monkey?” And they said yes. Dee Dee went and got it for me.”

Veazie called across the field to her sister Dee Dee Killilea. She fetched the monkey from the bus.

The monkey had been living with former Dexter player Courtney McCormick, who is in college in the Boston area. She sent it up recently.

“We thought we needed to pull it out at halftime to get us going, and it worked,” said midfielder-forward Brittany Veazie, Margaret Veazie’s daughter.

Greely athletics soar

It was 1 a.m. Sunday morning when Greely athletic director Jack Hardy saw something that took him by surprise.

Hardy was at the high school in Cumberland Center, waiting for the Rangers volleyball team to come back from winning the state championship over Woodland at the University of Maine-Machias, when a line of cars pulled into the school.

Members of the Greely field hockey team, enjoying a sleepover party after winning their own state title, had heard the volleyball team was due back and decided to wait at the school, too.

The Rangers won three state titles Saturday – the boys cross country team picked up the Class B crown – and the girls soccer team earned the Western Maine Class A title. Greely’s boys soccer team lost 1-0 in the Western Maine title game and the girls cross country squad was fourth in Class B.

Hardy went from field hockey to both soccer games Saturday but said fans’ minds were on the other sports, too.

“Everywhere I went people wanted to know what was going on, how everyone was doing,” he said.

The school is trying to find a video of the volleyball matches because there has been some talk of playing it on a local cable access channel, Hardy added. The school has had varsity volleyball for two years (it was a club sport in its first season).

Greely is the first school other than Jonesport-Beals or Woodland to win the volleyball state title since the MPA started a state championship for the sport in 1997.

Cumberland’s fire and police services were busy Saturday, too. Hardy said all three state championship teams got escorts into town, including the late-arriving volleyball squad.

Bangor girls did coach proud

Jeff Ingalls has coached a lot of teams over the course of many years, but he knows his 2003 Bangor High School girls soccer squad was special.

The Rams had an outstanding season, putting together a 14-2-2 record on their way to a berth in the Eastern Maine Class A championship game. Even though Bangor was beaten by Mount Ararat of Topsham on Saturday, Ingalls came away gratified.

“I could not be around a better bunch of people,” Ingalls said. “This is one of the highlights of my career, not just to coach them as far as we went, but to be around them.”

Bangor featured a squad of 24 players, including five seniors, eight juniors, seven sophomores and four freshmen.

“These are model citizens of Bangor, Maine, and model team members,” Ingalls said. “They supported one another.”

Jessica Bloch can be reached at 990-8193, 1-800-310-8600 or jbloch@bangordailynews.net.

State Soccer Sites

SATURDAY

CLASS A

(At Windham High School)

Boys: Mount Ararat (13-2-2) vs. Scarborough (14-1-1), 10 a.m.

Girls: Mount Ararat (14-31) vs. Greely (14-1-2), 1 p.m.

CLASS B

(At Morse High School, Bath)

Boys: Winslow (15-1-1) vs. Falmouth (16-0-1), 10 a.m.

Girls: Belfast (16-1) vs. Yarmouth (13-1-3), 1 p.m.

CLASS C

(At Weatherbee School, Hampden)

Boys: Dexter (13-3-1) vs. Georges Valley (16-1), 10 a.m.

Girls: Houlton (12-4-1) vs. North Yarmouth (16-1)

CLASS D

(At Point Lookout, Northport)

Boys: Machias (14-1) vs. Waynflete (7-6-2), 10 a.m.

Girls: Lee (17-0) vs. Waynflete (11-3), 1 p.m.