Caribou High graduate Bill Schofield has returned to his alma mater to coach the girls basketball team.

So far it’s been a good experience for the first-year varsity coach. And with the talent Schofield has on the team this year, it’s no wonder the he’s having fun in his new position.

“I’ve stepped into a real good program with some real good kids,” he said after the Vikings beat Ellsworth Friday night. “When you have four starting seniors, six returning seniors, it’s easy.”

Caribou is 6-0 with quality early wins over Hermon and Ellsworth, although the Vikings have yet to face Aroostook County rival Presque Isle, which is 6-0. The first game of the rivalry will be Jan. 7 at Caribou.

Schofield served as the junior varsity coach last year and assisted former coach Jeff Jose the previous year.

Schofield graduated from Caribou in 1981. He went on to play at Bangor Community College and UMaine-Presque Isle and is employed by Maine Public Service, an electric company that services the County.

He replaces Jose, who left for family reasons after coaching the Vikings to a 19-17 regular-season record in two years. Schofield’s oldest daughter, Stephanie, plays on the junior varsity squad.

New soccer awards popular

The Maine Association of Soccer Coaches handed out awards in a new category during Sunday’s awards banquet in Bangor, and one of the positive results was an overall increase in voting.

Player of the Year honors were given out in each of the four enrollment classifications for the first time this year.

Mike Jeffrey, the president of the coaches’ association, said he received about 30 more ballots than in previous years. It’s still about 150 ballots short of the 255 coaches across the state.

“A lot of coaches have losing seasons, the season is over with, so the coach is done with it,” Jeffrey said. “There coaches that are here are glad about what happened in the season, and they’re the ones that vote.”

“It certainly created an interest in people considering other things,” he added.

Voting for the new awards was done separately from the voting for the All-New England and All-America awards, which are the big honors traditionally announced at the annual banquet.

Jeffrey said the new awards encouraged cross-classification voting, so Class A coaches had a chance to vote for Class D players.

“When an A coach selects an All-New England and All-American, they’re going to fill out the ballot with predominately A and B kids,” he said. “So they never vote for D kids. You put a Player of the Year award on there and you get cross-voting. The A guy is now going to think, who’s the best D kid.”

For several of the players from smaller schools, an award based on classification was a nice addition.

“It’s a chance for the smaller kids to get recognized,” said Lee’s Shelby Pickering, who was named the Class D girls Player of the Year. “There’s some kids that are [from smaller schools] but don’t have as many people to vote for them to be All-New England.”

Class B girls Player of the Year Kaitlin Murphy of Belfast felt her win was a compliment for her team. The Lions won their first Eastern Maine title but fell short in the state final.

“I think it speaks a lot to how our team did this year and how far [coach Don Hoenig] took us,” said the senior fullback. “The whole team pulled together. It was unchartered territory, something we’d never done before.”

Pickering, Hoenig honored

Shelby Pickering’s father Tom, who coaches the Lee girls soccer team, and Belfast’s Don Hoenig, were both invited to an awards dinner to find out if they’ve been named the National Soccer Coaches Association of America’s National Coach of the Year in their respective enrollment catagories.

Pickering was picked as the New England winner in the private/parochial school category. Hoenig is the regional representative in the Division I (large school) category.

It is believed to be the first time two Maine high school coaches were selected as the NSCAA New England winners in the same year.

The dinner will be held Friday, Jan. 16 at the 2004 NSCAA Convention in Charlotte, N.C.

The national winners at the high school level also will be selected to coach at the McDonald’s All American High School Soccer Games, tentatively scheduled for June 11-13 at The Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif.

Shelby Pickering said she didn’t think her father was planning to attend, but had one request anyway.

“I think he should take me with him if he does,” she joked.

Brown holds Dexter mark

James Wintle of Dexter, the author of several books about that town’s history, wrote in to point out that neither Ashley Ames nor Margaret (Clark) Veazie nor Shawna McKenney has quite reached the level of Jana Brown in Dexter schoolgirl basketball history.

Brown scored 46 points in a game during the 1966-67 season, at which time there were six girls on the floor at a time instead of the current five.

The modern record is 33 points, which 6-4 junior center Ames tied in a Dec. 18 game. She shares that mark with current girls coach Veazie and McKenney.

Superintendent remains neutral

Keith Ober has come up with a novel way to cheer for both the Stearns and Schenck basketball teams, even though the two high schools are rivals.

Ober, who is serving as the interim superintendent of both the Millinocket School Department, which is where Stearns is located, and School Union 113 in East Millinocket, sat in a chair behind the scorer’s table at Stearns’ Wentworth Gym during the Dec. 12 Schenck-Stearns girls basketball game with a Schenck T-shirt draped over one side of the chair and a Stearns’ shirt on the other side. The two schools are about eight miles apart.

Ober is serving as the superintendent of both districts as the area schools explore their future in the face of declining enrollments. He was hired over the summer and has a one-year contract.

The Stearns girls emerged with a 55-32 win in the Friday night game.

Massabesic’s Walker honored

Stephanie Walker of Massabesic has been named to the National Field Hockey Coaches Association’s 2003 High School All-America second team.

Walker, a senior forward for the Mustangs of Waterboro, was a Miss Maine field hockey finalist.

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