MILLINOCKET – Last season, Stearns High School head coach Chris Preble took an experienced varsity football team to the Eastern Maine Class C championship, where it lost to Foxcroft Academy in overtime. This year, Preble will lead an inexperienced and currently injury-riddled team as the Minutemen fight for a playoff spot.

Of the team’s 22 starters last year, only two remain, having lost the other 20 through graduation, including three-year starting quarterback Derek DiFrederico. Preble views the lack of experience as the team’s biggest weakness, as only two of the team’s 33-man roster have solid varsity experience.

“We have some good athletes, but they don’t have a whole lot of experience. … We don’t have a whole lot of depth,” said Preble.

Due to that lack of experience, Preble and his assistant coaches slow down practices to make sure the players absorb all of the information they’re learning.

“We’ve slowed things down a little bit. We don’t have as much of our offense in right now as last year,” said Preble. “The guys last year had been around [the offense] for three or four years, so they knew what was going on from day one.”

Preble said he expects the players will learn as much in some games as they do during practices and by the end of the year they will be a much better team than they were at the beginning.

Along with inexperience, the team also faces health problems as key players are injured, including offensive guards, defensive tackles, and a safety.

“I think if we stay healthy – which we’re not right now – but if we ever get healthy, we will be a competitive team,” said Preble.

Preble believes that one of the keys to having a successful year is keeping the team healthy.

“We have to stay focused on what our goals at hand are and stay healthy, obviously, that’s the big thing,” said Preble.

While the team may not be of the same caliber as last year, its goals have not changed, as the Minutemen expect to make the playoffs. Stearns has made the playoffs 13 years in a row.

“Goals are the same every year; we want to compete for a playoff spot, which is only fair when you have kids who have played their whole career and want to make the playoffs,” said Preble.

Preble also has yet to decide on a starting quarterback, waiting until the end of the preseason to make this decision.

“I’ll make the decision on who our starter will be for the first game and then that could change,” said Preble, “I’m not the type of person that says ‘If you start this season, you’re [the starter for the season].'”

Preble expects that, regardless of the outcome of the season, fan support will be as good as usual.

“[The fans] have been awesome, there’s a lot of support, this town loves football, some people don’t like it when you say it’s a football town, but when you say ‘Stearns,’ they think of football,” he said.

STEARNS MINUTEMEN

2003 results: 9-2, lost in EM Class C final

Head coach: Chris Preble, 4th year

Key players: Matt Wark, RB-CB, Sr.; Ryan Bouchard, LB-RB, Sr.; Rick Kaul, FB-NG, Sr.; Shawn Picard, OT-DT, Jr.

Outlook: The Minutemen hope to bounce back this year after a disappointing loss in the Eastern Maine final last season. Preble expects to run the ball more, like most teams in the state, but is also prepared to pass when teams start to cheat toward the run. Preble believes the key is to find and exploit weaknesses on the other team.