Brothers, friends bonded for win Rams came together for state title

WINDHAM – Nick George was playing soccer at the James F. Doughty School – a middle school – last fall.

Ryan Larochelle was part of the Bangor High School junior varsity team.

Worlds away from a state championship, it seemed, but little did they know they were really just one year away from that dream, after all.

And little did they know they would team up for a golden goal, as Larochelle scored off George’s corner kick with 5:07 left in the second overtime Saturday to lift Bangor High to a 1-0 victory over Scarborough and the school’s first state Class A boys soccer title.

Relationships between upperclassmen and underclassmen in high school often are antagonistic, if not nonexistent. The junior and seniors are the big guys on campus, the freshmen and sophomores must wait their turn. But while the Bangor soccer team blended nine seniors, four juniors, six sophomores and four freshmen, differences in age were supplanted by the common bond of sport.

Virtually all of the players had come up through the Bangor Youth Soccer system, and some had siblings that had preceded them at the varsity level. Those links provided opportunity for introductions, and eventually respect as older players came to see that younger players had paid similar dues to develop their skills.

“We’ve known each other for so long, and a lot of our brothers have been on other teams together, so we all pretty much knew each other when we started,” said Bangor senior midfielder Cam Cormier, whose brother Cody was a freshman on the Rams’ roster. “It just all clicked after that. It was amazing how much we communicated with each other, and everything just flowed so well.”

Bangor suffered an early loss to rival Hampden Academy, then had a tie with Mt. Blue of Farmington. But despite those blips the Rams continued to bond off the field, and develop on the field – not necessarily with a state title on their minds, but with the collective notion of good things to come.

“Toward the end of the season, we realized everything was coming together,” said Ryan Larochelle, a sophomore back. “We were playing real well together, we had a great record and coming into the playoffs we just had all the confidence in the world.”

Team meals and other joint activities helped forge team confidence and chemistry – not to mention play on the field

“Our underclassmen played amazing,” said junior back Christian Larochelle. “We started at least three or four underclassmen, and most of those guys had never played at this level before, but everyone made a lot of progress through the season.”

And pivotal to making this melting pot work was the effort on and off the field of the elder statesmen – seniors Aaron Taft, Greg Lenz, Tony Martinez, Ross Allen, JoJo Hwalek, Mike Wellington, Matt Goodell, Troy Jellison and Cormier.

“The seniors are a classy bunch of guys,” said Bangor coach Adam Leach. “They are people you look up to, not just because of their skill on the field, but they are friends, they’re mentors, and they fit so seamlessly together.

“It’s amazing. You’d think with a bunch of freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors like we have it would be hard to put it together, but they just fell into place. Since Day 1, it started great and just got better from there.”

And the reward is sweet, particularly for the seniors for whom Saturday’s game represented their final chance at high school soccer glory.

“This is amazing,” said Hwalek. “This is the last year for the seniors, and after losing 14 seniors from last year it wasn’t looking good. We thought we’d have a rebuilding year and go into the playoffs [ranked] fifth or sixth and just do OK. But after the season started, we just kept getting better and better, and we went out in style.”

“It’s unbelievable,” added Taft, the team’s goalie. “Senior year, it’s just amazing. We weren’t expecting this all, but we worked so hard this year and we have amazing chemistry.”