Ellsworth to honor top coach ‘Katsiaficas Gym’ to be dedicated

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Charlie Katsiaficas’ tenure as boys varsity basketball coach at Ellsworth High School may have been brief – only five years – but it was legendary in its accomplishments.

This son of Greek immigrants from Nashua, N.H., arrived in the city to teach and coach in 1951 after completing graduate studies at Springfield College.

“I had worked in the mill for 40 cents an hour when I was younger, so I knew the value of a dollar,” recalled Katsiaficas. “I told the school board when I was interviewed that if we didn’t have a winning team, I’d give them their money back.”

The school board never sought a refund.

In just his second season in Ellsworth, Katsiaficas led the Eagles to the first of two consecutive undefeated Class L state championship seasons, and the first of two straight trips to the Boston Garden for the New England Interscholastic Tournament.

In 1953, Ellsworth fell in the New England quarterfinals to New London, Conn.

A year later, the Eagles nearly won it all.

Led by stars such as two-time All-New England choice Jack Scott and All-New England center John Edes, the 1954 team defeated East Providence, R.I., in the New England quarterfinals, then battled powerful Hillhouse of New Haven, Conn., to the buzzer before dropping a 54-53 semifinal decision.

“My guys did a good job,” recalled the 80-year-old Katsiaficas, now retired and living in Ellsworth with his wife of 52 years, Lily.

Hillhouse went on to win the championship, but the Eagles had captured the imagination of an entire region. Even the Boston Celtics were impressed, so much so that Katsiaficas struck up a friendship with team executives Walter Brown and Red Auerbach, who brought the team to Ellsworth in subsequent years for summer clinics.

In recognition of Katsiaficas’ coaching success, the Ellsworth High gym will be dedicated in his name at approximately 7 p.m. Friday, just before the boys varsity game between Ellsworth and Presque Isle.

“It’s quite an honor to have all those people put your name up for something like this, because I’m not the nicest guy in the world,” said Katsiaficas, whose grandson Demetrios is a starting guard on this year’s Ellsworth squad. “I have a reputation for not mincing words.”

Katsiaficas, a veteran of the Army Air Force before he did his undergraduate studies at the University of New Hampshire, had a high-energy coaching style matched only by the pace at which his teams played.

It was fast-break attack the former UNH basketball captain learned from University of Rhode Island coach Frank Kearney.

“He was really ahead of the game as far as coaching,” said Terry Spurling, a 15-year-old sophomore on Ellsworth’s undefeated 1954 team. “We ran and pressed, and there wasn’t anyone around that played as aggressively as we did back then.”

Katsiaficas stepped away from coaching after the 1955-56 season to launch what would become a successful real estate and insurance business in his adopted hometown. He and his wife also raised five children, including two sons, Charles Jr. and Ray, who followed their father into the coaching ranks.

Initially certified to officiate basketball at age 18, Katsiaficas also picked up the whistle again after leaving the coaching ranks and quickly became one of the state’s top college and high school referees.

Among the more memorable games Katsiaficas worked was the 1969 state Class LL championship game at the Bangor Auditorium between Caribou and Westbrook, a game decided at the final buzzer on a shot from beyond halfcourt by Caribou’s Mike Thurston.

“Charlie was the trail official on Mike Thurston’s try for goal,” said Maine basketball commissioner Peter Webb, who has a copy of the Caribou-Westbrook game tape. “Charlie was very definitive with his signal that the basket would be good if successful. There were no ifs, ands or buts about the fact that the shot was away before the clock ran out.”

“As soon as the ball left his hand, I signaled that it would be good,” added Katsiaficas. “Then about four seconds later, the ball went through the hoop.”

Dexter’s Ames out 3 weeks

Dexter senior 6-foot-6 center Mallory Ames will miss up to three weeks with a sprained right ankle, virtually the same injury she suffered just before and during the Eastern Maine Class C tournament last year.

Ames suffered the injury during the third quarter of Monday’s game against Penobscot Valley of Howland. She had already scored 18 points and grabbed 11 rebounds when the injury occurred as she twisted her ankle.

“It’s a bad sprain,” Tigers coach Jody Grant said. “It’s the same foot, same injury.”

Ames scored 28 points and had 14 rebounds in Friday’s season-opening 48-36 win over Piscataquis of Guilford.

Grant said he’ll rest her the next two weeks of regular-season games and will likely not use her when Dexter plays in Cony High’s Capitol City Hoop Classic tournament Dec. 28-30 in Augusta.

The Tigers face rival Central of Corinth tonight in a rematch of last year’s Eastern Maine Class C final, which Dexter won 42-38.

Ames suffered the original injury when she rolled her ankle during a practice session the week before the tournament. She played in the quarterfinal but rolled it again during a semifinal against No. 5 Houlton.

She went on to play in both the Eastern Maine final and state titles games, helping the Tigers win both. Ames was named to the Eastern Maine Class C all-tournament team, averaging averaged 12.3 ppg and 5 rpg.

Ames was also a Penobscot Valley Conference Classes C-D first-team all-star and was All-Maine honorable mention.

For Bapst, a home wrestling meet

The John Bapst of Bangor wrestling program will experience a historic first Saturday – its first home meet.

Coach Frank Heaney’s Crusaders will host Penobscot Valley of Howland and Calvary Chapel of Orrington beginning at 9:30 at the school’s auditorium.

John Bapst has a lengthy history of fielding a competitive wrestling team, but until now did not have a competition-quality mat to host meets. In fact, the mat used for practices in recent years by the Crusaders had been retired more than two decades ago by the Maine Maritime Academy wrestling program.

But a group of John Bapst wrestling boosters conducted a fundraising drive last winter that eventually raised more than $10,000, which was used to purchase a mat used by the NCAA at its Division I championship meet last year.

Such mats are used by the NCAA only at that one championship meet, then are made available for sale and eventually are returned to the manufacturer to be reconditioned for use by the purchasing party.

The mat purchased by the John Bapst boosters, customized with a logo and the words “Bapst wrestling,” was delivered to the school last spring.

Saturday’s meet will be the first of three hosted by Bapst this season in its auditorium, in which fans will watch the matches from the balcony above where the competition mat is located.