NORTHPORT – That Nick Arthers will lead the Belfast Area High School football team into Saturday’s Eastern Maine Class B final against Winslow is a testament to his patience.

Like his immediate predecessors, the 6-foot-2, 190-pound senior had to wait for his chance to become the Lions’ starting quarterback.

Ben Cowan had to wait until Ben Morley graduated after the 2000 season for his chance, and John Lear had to wait until Cowan graduated before guiding the Lions to the 2002 Eastern B title.

When Lear graduated last spring, Arthers rose from the ranks of understudy to become choreographer of the Lions’ offense.

Little did he know when the season began that the waiting still wasn’t over.

He dislocated his nonthrowing shoulder before Belfast’s fourth game of the season, forcing him to miss that game against Old Town and the following week’s contest against Brewer – the Lions’ first loss.

“That was really frustrating for me,” said Arthers this week during a practice at MBNA’s Point Lookout field. “The team was doing everything they could, and I couldn’t do anything to help them. All I could do was cheer for them, and it was really hard to stand there and see us lose a close [14-12] game like that.”

Arthers returned to action the next weekend against Leavitt, only to suffer another injury to the same shoulder during the second quarter.

“I didn’t really know how to react at first,” said Arthers, the son of Belfast co-coach Butch Arthers. “It was really a shock to me that coming back that it happened again.”

“It crossed my mind a little that I might be out for the rest of the season, but I figured that it was my senior year and I wasn’t going to let something like that get me down.”

For Arthers, the waiting began anew, through the rest of the Leavitt game and the following week’s exhibition contest against Mountain Valley.

“Nick stayed very positive,” said Belfast co-coach Butch Richards. “Having it be his nonthrowing shoulder helped. He might not have been in uniform, but he could still do some of the ballhandling stuff the quarterbacks do every day, and he could help [sophomore QB] Andy [Whalen], not only as a mentor but as a positive, pat-on-the-back kind of guy who could support Andy when he might be worried about making a mistake.”

Arthers returned to action – this time for good – just in time for the regular-season showdown with Winslow.

“I was about 75 percent at that time,” he said. “I was still a little tentative, a little afraid that I might hurt it again and be out for the rest of the season this time.”

Winslow got the best of Belfast that Friday night, winning a 28-14 decision on the Lions’ home field.

Since then, Arthers gradually has reacclimated himself to the role he had waited so patiently to earn, as well as rejoining the Belfast defense as an outside linebacker, where he has been a fixture for the last two years.

That Arthers is at or near full strength was apparent a week ago, when Belfast avenged its earlier loss to Brewer with a 32-0 win over the Witches in a regional semifinal.

He rushed for 62 yards and a TD on 17 carries and hit senior fullback Paul Herman for a 15-yard touchdown pass. Arthers also orchestrated a 22-play, 99-yard drive that consumed nearly the entire second quarter and produced the Lions’ first touchdown.

“Last Friday night was the first time in probably the last five weeks that we were able to run all of our offense and not be afraid of putting anybody in a position of doing something they might not be able to do or put Nick in the position where he could re-injure himself,” Richards said.

Now Arthers and the Lions are in a position they are acutely familiar with, in the Eastern Maine final for the ninth straight year.

For Nick Arthers, it’s been worth the wait.