BANGOR – After some last-minute phone calls around town and overseas, John Bapst left wing Petter Lundquist will be able to play in Saturday’s Class B boys soccer state championship after all.

The senior exchange student was supposed to be on a plane back to his hometown of Hornefors, Sweden today because his time in the U.S. is up. It’s a return that was in the works for several months.

But the Crusaders are still playing – they’ll face Falmouth Saturday at 1 p.m. at Lewiston High School – and Lundquist couldn’t imagine not playing.

“Making [state game] was always the goal,” he said before practice Thursday in the Bapst gymnasium. “I really wanted to be there to play in it. I would have been so frustrated if we had made it all the way and I hadn’t been there. So I decided to stay.”

Thanks to some of the parents of the Bapst soccer players and his host family, whose daughter, Anna DeLong of Blue Hill, is in Sweden now, Lundquist was able to raise the money to make changes to his flight.

He’ll head home Sunday – he’s hoping after having won a state title.

Lundquist said his parents weren’t worried about him staying a few extra days.

“They’re supporting me,” he said. “They know how I feel about it.”

Lundquist will have a long trip home. From Bangor he’ll fly to Philadelphia, then to Manchester, England, and then to Sweden, where he has an hour plane right to Hornefors.

“It’s worth it,” he said.

The exchange between Bangor and Hornefors isn’t a formal program, just through the two schools. Lundquist arrived at John Bapst at the end of August and missed some of the preseason. He started as a striker but was moved to left wing.

Chilean playing soccer

Lundquist isn’t the only exchange student starting for the Crusaders. Andy Stange of Pucon, Chile, is Bapst’s center midfielder.

Stange doesn’t play soccer in Chile – in fact, he hasn’t played on an organized team in many years – because most soccer is not usually played in schools but in larger cities where there are club teams.

“It’s at a different level there,” he said. “You have to go to the big cities.”

Stange is in Bangor for the year through the American Field Service (AFS), a cultural exchange program under the U.S. Department of State’s Youth Exchange and Study scholarship program.

Masked men

Stange shares another distinction with a teammate. Both he and goalie Chris Smith have had to wear plastic facemasks in the playoffs because of injuries.

Stange’s top front two teeth are loose because of a collision with the Winslow goalie during an Eastern Maine Class B semifinal. Smith suffered several facial injuries, including a broken nose, in a regular-season game against Mount Desert Island.

The masks were recommended to Stange and Smith by John Bapst athletic trainer Mark Quinn.

“It’s not very comfortable and it’s hard to breathe,” he said. “It’s hard to see, especially with low balls when you have to control the ball and handle it.”

Frace said Smith has the same vision problems, although that didn’t seem to hurt him during Tuesday’s Eastern Maine final against Ellsworth during which the goalie made five saves on 11 shots in a 2-1 win.

Stange wasn’t the only casualty of the Winslow semifinal. Smith suffered a broken toe in that game, too.