The curtain came down on Bangor High School’s boys varsity soccer season two months ago, but the afterglow still remains for the members of the Rams’ historic squad.

Evidently, it’s still there for the fans as well. Just a week after the shipment of championship jackets arrived at Bangor High, Maine sports fans have chosen Bangor High’s unforgettable soccer season as the 2006 Bangor Daily News/WZON Maine Sports Story of the Year.

Despite stiff competition from Farmington native and Winter Olympics gold medalist Seth Wescott, the University of Maine hockey team, and the Portland Sea Dogs, Bangor won in Internet voting conducted by Bangor all-sports radio station WZON and the BDN by just over a 2-to-1 margin.

Bangor High’s first-ever soccer state championship – the first in Class A ever won by a school located further north than Fairfield or Waterville – won the balloting with 40 percent of the online vote in the ninth installment of this annual unscientific poll that drew 1,764 total votes in two weeks.

Bangor boys soccer coach Adam Leach said being named Maine’s sports story of the year made an already special season even more so.

“Yeah, it does. It gives us a chance to extend the fun a little bit,” Leach said. “You know, it shows me the way the sport has come a long way over the years. Ten years ago, I don’t think you’d even have a soccer-related story be one of the choices in this.”

“It’s just been really exciting knowing that people are finally getting excited about the sport in general,” said senior tri-captain Ross Allen. “And it’s cool that we can be a part of that.”

Despite losing 13 seniors to graduation, bringing in four freshmen among a lot of new faces, and losing the services of tri-captain Cam Cormier for two-thirds of the season due to ankle surgery and rehabilitation, the Rams went through the regular season with an impressive 12-1-1 record.

Yet even with that success, it wasn’t until they played perennial title contender Brunswick in the noncountable Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference title game that they believed they were true state championship material.

“We were thinking maybe we could win the Easterns and how awesome that might be,” said Allen.

Leach admitted the Rams’ big goal initially was to win a semifinal for the first time and just get into a regional final.

That 1-0 win over Brunswick changed that kind of thinking, however.

“Our goals and our expectations changed after that game,” Allen said. “It really made us a confident team and helped us realize we were of state championship caliber. It got every one of us thinking.”

The Rams went on to score seven goals – each by a different player – in four playoff games culminating with a 1-0 win over previously unbeaten West champion Scarborough.

“That right there tells the story of our team and what made it special,” said Leach. “There were no superstars on our team, and the ones who did stand out are very humble who got to where they are through hard work and understanding it’s a team game,”

Then came the trophy which had never before graced Bangor High’s trophy case, followed by Leach being named 2006 Region I (New England) large-school coach of the year by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America, the championship jackets, and now story of the year.

“I was talking to one of my teammates and we said with this we can just add another thing to our file,” said senior tri-captain JoJo Hwalek. “I think it’s amazing. It just caps off a perfect season for us, pretty much. It brings it back into focus for us again and will probably have a few people watching the state game on DVD one more time.”

Bangor’s storybook season captured 41 percent of the voting (210 votes).

The other contenders for story of the year and their corresponding voting percentages are as follows: Wescott winning gold in snowboardcross (19 percent, 97 votes), UMaine hockey reaching Frozen Four (14.8, 76), the Portland Sea Dogs winning their first Eastern League title (12.7, 65), the UMaine baseball team advancing to the NCAA Regionals a second straight year (4.3, 22), Lawrence High School football team’s unbeaten Class A state championship season (4.3, 22), and changing the Eastern Maine basketball tournament format (3.9, 20).