Ben Lothrop had a pretty successful time on the sidelines and in the dugout during the 2004-05 school year.

He coached the Ashland girls basketball team to the Eastern Maine Class D championship game and the Hornets’ baseball team to the regional playoffs.

But his educational career path is leading toward administration, so Lothrop has stepped down from those two coaching posts to become Ashland’s new K-12 athletic administrator.

“It was a tough decision, but administration has been the direction I want to go in,” said Lothrop, who coached girls basketball at Ashland for nine years and baseball for the past four seasons. “The way I look at it, I haven’t given up coaching completely, I’m just doing it at a different level.”

Lothrop, who also teaches social studies at Ashland, replaces Gene Bradbury in the athletic administrator’s post. Bradbury retired after the most recent school year.

Lothrop currently is focused on getting the Ashland athletic program going for the fall, as the regular season for Aroostook County schools began this week, and the school’s soccer teams were scheduled to host Caribou in their season openers on Tuesday.

One of Lothrop’s major tasks in the coming weeks will to be replace himself as a coach.

The Ashland girls basketball coaching post should be particularly attractive, given that the Hornets graduated just one starter – Lothrop’s daughter Ashlee Peters – and sixth player Beth Chamberlin from the nucleus of the 2005 team that went 16-2 during the regular season and advanced to the regional final before falling to undefeated Lee Academy, which went on to win the state championship.

Lothrop’s 2005 baseball team finished the regular season ranked ninth in Eastern D with an 8-7 record and advanced to the preliminary round where its season ended with a loss to Katahdin of Stacyville.

“I don’t think my coaching career is over,” Lothrop said. “But at this point, my responsibility is to focus on my new job.”

Morrill takes Penquis soccer post

Teri Morrill, who has coached the girls soccer team at Penquis Valley Middle School in Milo for the past few years, has been named the new girls varsity soccer coach at Penquis Valley High School, according to athletic director Tony Hamlin.

Morrill, who also serves as the girls junior varsity basketball coach at Penquis, replaces Jensen Bissell. Bissell, who had coached the girls soccer team for the past three seasons, resigned earlier this summer after he was appointed interim director of Baxter State Park.

Bissell was elevated from his position as director of the park’s Scientific Forestry Management Area to interim park director when Irwin “Buzz” Caverly retired July 1.

PTC A schedule has new look

Preseason practices are under way for the state’s high school football programs, and reclassification has brought a new look to the Eastern Maine grid wars.

Take the Pine Tree Conference Class A schedule, for example. Last year’s two-division, 14-team league is now a one-division, 11-team operation with the move of Windham to Western A and the decisions of Gardiner and Waterville to drop to the PTC B ranks.

It’s led to a different scheduling format for the remaining Eastern A clubs, each of which will play eight regular-season games over nine weeks. Each team will have a bye, and due to the quirks of an 11-team format, three teams – Lewiston, Skowhegan, and Lawrence of Fairfield – will draw a bye on the same weekend, Sept. 30-Oct. 1.

Defending Eastern Maine Class A champion Bangor will open its regular season at Lewiston on Friday, Sept. 2. The Rams then play their home opener against Mount Ararat of Topsham on Sept. 9.

Other home games for coach Mark Hackett’s club are against Cony of Augusta (Sept. 23), Messalonskee of Oakland (Sept. 30) and Mt. Blue of Farmington (Oct. 28), with additional road games at Brunswick (Sept. 16), Lawrence (Oct. 7), and the regular-season finale at Oxford Hills of South Paris (Oct. 28).

Bangor will have a bye in Week 7, Oct. 14-15.

The PTC A playoff format has been reduced from eight teams to four this year, with semifinals scheduled for Nov. 4-5 and the PTC championship game set for the weekend of Nov. 11-12.

The state championship games in Classes B, C, and D will be held Nov. 19 at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland.

One PTC A scheduling question that remained to be determined was where Skowhegan will play its home games this season. That was resolved through a deal reached with Madison High School administrators. All of Skowhegan’s home games will be played Saturdays at 7 p.m. The Indians host Oxford Hills on Sept. 10, Lewiston on Sept. 17, Cony on Oct. 15, and Messalonskee on Oct. 22.

Clark Memorial Field, located just behind the high school, is undergoing major renovations to rebuild the playing surface and related facilities, and won’t be available to the Skowhegan football teams this fall.