A new era of soccer will begin at Hermon High this fall as the school has hired two new varsity coaches and will schedule at least five games under new lights for both girls and boys soccer.

There was also good news for the tennis program last week as the town council allowed the school to go forward with the building of three new courts at the high school.

“This is a very exciting time for us,” athletic director Paul Soucy said. “We’re very pleased with the direction we’re going.”

Kurt Mathies, who has coached at several levels locally and is the director of the Hampden Recreation Department, will coach the Hermon boys. Kevin St. Jarre, a Madawaska native who has been teaching and coaching at Noble High in North Berwick, will take over the girls team.

Mathies played soccer at the University of Maine-Presque Isle from 1991-93. In addition to running Hampden’s recreation department, Mathies is a coach in the University of Maine’s popular Black Bear United youth program.

At the high school level, Mathies coached at Presque Isle and spent six years as an assistant and head coach at Hampden Academy.

“He came very highly recommended,” Soucy said. “We’re very fortunate to be getting someone with his experience. He’s really a well-respected soccer person in Eastern Maine.”

St. Jarre and his family moved back to eastern Maine to be closer to both his family and his wife’s family, who come from Waldoboro.

A former U.S. Army Intelligence officer who was involved in both the Desert Shield and Desert Storm operations in the Middle East in the early 1990s and served in Germany and the Czech Republic, St. Jarre is also the author of the “Night Stalkers” series of books. He writes under the pen name Michael Hawke.

St. Jarre was hired to teach social studies at Hermon High.

While at Noble, St. Jarre helped head coach Darcy Goulet start rebuilding a program that had gone 2-24-2 in 2002 and 2003. The Knights won four games last fall.

“The AD down there said he did a terrific job in helping turn the program around,” Soucy said. “And he has a great soccer background.”

St. Jarre played at Madawaska. He was an assistant soccer coach at Caribou High and was a member of an all-Army soccer team while serving in Europe.

Hermon’s new coaches will be part of the teams that will christen the lights this fall.

Hermon’s first night soccer game will likely be held sometime in August as a preseason alumni game, and then Soucy is hoping the Hawks will play almost all of their home games at night. The exceptions would be games against schools that come from a distance, such as Presque Isle.

Soucy said he thinks attendance will double as more parents will be able to come to games after work.

“Traditionally we get 75-100 people for an afternoon game,” he said. “We feel we can double that. [Lights] give more people an opportunity to get to the games. When people come down Route 2 towards the school and see those lights, the natural reaction is to look up and say, ‘What’s going on up there?'”

None of the $60,000 used to pay for the lights came from the town or school budgets.

Soucy credited former Hermon coaches Dave Hamel (boys varsity) and Mike Poulin (girls varsity) with helping to get the lights initiative started.

“Both Dave and Mike took this program to a constant playoff-caliber level and I’m grateful for that,” he said. “It’s too bad they won’t be here to see [the lights] after years of working on it.”

Hamel and Poulin both resigned this spring.

Construction on the Hermon tennis courts will begin this fall, Soucy said.

The original plan for tennis courts was to refurbish the old courts at the elementary school. Soucy said the construction company recommended new courts because of the maintenance that the old courts would require.

The school is in the process of purchasing six acres of land between the high school and the middle school, which is where the courts will sit.

“This should be a real shot in the arm for Hermon tennis,” Soucy said.

The school would like to raise money to build a fourth court, Soucy added, as part of a plan to host Maine Principals’ Association tournaments in several sports.

Pinkham puts on a show

Sumner of East Sullivan graduate Jody Pinkham was all the talk of last week’s Penobscot Valley Conference softball all-star games.

That’s because she slammed two home runs over the 200-foot fence at Brewer High’s Coffin Field during the Class C team’s 14-3 win over Class D. One was a three-run shot, the other was a solo homer.

“It was cool,” Pinkham said. “When I hit the second one, they came over the loudspeaker and said something like, ‘There’s another one gone.’ … During the season everyone was trying to pitch around me and [in the PVC game] I actually got some good pitches to hit.”

Multi-homer games are nothing new for Pinkham – she had “three or four” in one game last year and finished the season with 13. The Tigers catcher hit six this year, which was a bit of an off year. Pinkham pulled a leg muscle during preseason and it affected her baserunning.

“I had nine triples and most of those I probably could have squeezed out a home run if I could run,” she said.

Pinkham’s high school career is over, but she is going to play on a slow-pitch team organized by her father, Sumner coach Elwood “Bimbo” Pinkham. She also started a new chapter in her life Monday when she launched her lobster boat, named The Lady J, from Steuben.

Jody Pinkham has 325 traps now but no sternmate. She was supposed to get some help from softball teammate Rachel Robinson, but she broke a finger this spring.

So what concerned Pinkham more when she saw Robinson’s injury – the loss of her teammate or the loss of her sternman?

“Both,” Pinkham said with a laugh. “But she’s also my best friend.”

Thurston resigns Old Town post

Old Town High has advertised for a new softball coach as Mike Thurston has resigned.

Thurston coached the Indians for five seasons after taking over for Laurie Bjorn in 2001. Old Town has gone 50-30 in the regular season under Thurston.

The Indians gained the No. 13 spot for the Eastern Maine Class A tournament this year, falling to No. 4 Oxford Hills of South Paris 1-0 in the preliminary round. Five Old Town players were named to the Penobscot Valley Conference all-star team.

Thurston, an elementary physical education teacher in Old Town, was a longtime high school basketball official and is known for his exploits as a basketball player at Caribou. He hit a shot from beyond half-court to give the Vikings the 1969 state championship.

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