Daniel McCue has played in 56 straight games for the Hampden Academy boys basketball team and has seen the program through some of its greatest accomplishments, including the 2005 Class A state championship and two straight Eastern Maine titles.

Still, there’s something special about the first day of tryouts and practice.

“Especially now that everything’s new,” the 6-foot-2 guard said Monday at the Hampden Academy gym. “It’s like a fresh start. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”

The Broncos are in for a number of changes this season due to the loss of nine players, including three starters. That should mean plenty of competition for spots on the varsity team.

“We only return five guys from last year’s team,” said Hampden coach Russ Bartlett, who ran the first day of practice and tryouts early Monday evening. “There are a lot of openings this year.”

High school student-athletes in all winter sports started tryouts and practices Monday, hitting the wrestling mats, diving into swimming pools, skating into ice hockey rinks and getting into gear for skiing, cheerleading and indoor track and field.

The first countable games and meets will be held Friday, Dec. 8.

Bartlett will run the first two days of tryouts with an especially sharp eye to finding underclassmen to fill the spots vacated by the graduation of players such as Jordan Cook, J Uhrin, Max Silver and Sam Hodgdon.

The Broncos coach was right in the middle of things Monday as almost 60 boys ran through footwork and ball-handling drills. Freshmen and sophomores mingled with juniors and seniors, although by Wednesday the group will be split into freshman, junior varsity and varsity teams.

“That’s the day I really look forward to,” Bartlett said. “I like to get through the tryouts and get things going. In the first two days [of tryouts] you kind of feel like you’re treading water a little bit. It’s the same for everybody, we all have to do it.”

Captains McCue and Evan Farley, a 6-foot-1 defensive-minded forward, are the only two seniors and two of three returning starters.

They’re ready to accept the leadership role.

“There’s a lot of pressure but we’re up for it,” McCue said. “We have a great group.”

The Broncos will also have a new look this year without the 6-10 Cook, who became a force inside and is now playing at the University of Maine.

“We’ll have to do more running and we won’t have much of an inside presence,” Farley said. “We’ll probably play around the perimeter more.”

Hampden’s numbers are up this year. The success of the program, including the back-to-back state title game appearances, has fueled growth.

“It’s made us more of a commodity in the community,” Bartlett said. “The kids are excited to play. Interest level is very high now, which is great.”

The Broncos have a tough opening schedule with a Dec. 9 game at Mt. Blue of Farmington and then a rivalry contest at Bangor the following Tuesday.

But Hampden’s hopes were high for the new season Monday, just like they were all in gyms, pools and rinks all over the state.

“This season our goal is to make it to the tournament again,” Farley said. “When the tournament starts it’s a whole new season. Anything can happen.”

Maine coach impressed Hall

A few trips to Orono to meet the UMaine softball team and a few conversations with Maine coach Stacey Sullivan, and Bucksport’s Terren Hall was hooked. The star pitcher-third baseman will play for the Black Bears next year.

Hall signed her National Letter of Intent last Tuesday. She also considered Division II Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, N.H., but Maine and Sullivan were her first choices.

“I like her style of coaching,” Hall said. “She’s very straightforward and she gets right to the point. I like that in a coach.”

Hall, the Penobscot Valley Conference Class B Pitcher and Player of the Year while going 14-0 last season, was told she probably won’t pitch at Maine. Instead, she’ll likely play third base and contribute offensively.

Hall said she has a partial scholarship in that the school will play for her books in her freshman and sophomore years but she’ll have a full scholarship her junior and senior years.

Remembering Ryder

Dick Durost’s first encounters with Howard Ryder were memorable.

“We were both such competitive personalities that we didn’t really get along at first,” said Durost, who was coaching the Penobscot Valley of Howland boys basketball team at the same time Ryder was coaching the Searsport boys.

By the time the two encountered each other again almost three decades later, when both were working in interscholastic athletics at the state level, things had changed.

Ryder was on the Maine Principals’ Association search committee that hired Durost to be the association’s executive director, a position he still holds. The next year Ryder served as the MPA president.

On Sunday, Durost spoke at Ryder’s funeral.

Ryder died Nov. 11 in Bangor from complications of multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood. He was 57.

Ryder, a Greenville native and graduate of Greenville High and UMaine-Farmington, taught and coached at Searsport and Orono high schools before becoming athletic director and assistant head of school at Foxcroft Academy. He was later promoted to head of school, a position he held until 1994.

He took the same post at Lincoln Academy that year. Ryder spent 12 years at the Newcastle school.

Durost said the issue of relationships between public and private schools was important to Ryder given his experience.

He held a variety of positions within in the MPA, serving on “more committees than you can count,” according to Durost. That included at least half of the MPA’s standing committees and a number of ad-hoc committees.

In addition to his work on interscholastic committees, Ryder also worked on the professional side of the MPA, chairing an ad-hoc committee that looked at the shortage of principal candidates in Maine.

“He was the rare person who commanded respect on both sides of the organization,” Durost said.

The MPA is accepting donations in Ryder’s name that the organization will allocate to each of the five schools with which Ryder was affiliated.

Gifts can be sent to the Maine Principals’ Association, P.O. Box 2468, Augusta, ME, 04338-2468. Please indicate to which school – Greenville, Searsport, Orono, Foxcroft Academy, or Lincoln Academy – to which the contribution should be directed.

Bucksport tournament on tap

‘Tis the season … for preseason basketball tournaments.

The Hancock Round Robin tournament will be held Nov. 27 for the girls and Nov. 28 for the boys at Bucksport High. Games start both days at 4 p.m. and finish at 8:35.

Each game will consist of one, 20-minute running time period. The clock will be stopped for one 20-second timeout and the final 20 seconds of the period. There will be no overtimes.

The teams involved are Deer Isle-Stonington, Searsport, Sumner of East Sullivan, George Stevens of Blue Hill, Ellsworth, Mount Desert Island and Bucksport.

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