ELLSWORTH – When Ellsworth and Mount Desert Island of Bar Harbor resume their Class B schoolboy basketball rivalry next season, there will be new head coaches on both sidelines.

MDI’s Wilton Jones recently resigned after a 14-year run as the Trojans’ head coach, and now Ellsworth’s Jay Brown is stepping down after two years of leading the Ellsworth boys varsity program.

“I really took the job on a fill-in basis,” said Brown, the school’s full-time athletic administrator since 1999, “and then it just expanded to two years.”

Brown stepped into the Ellsworth basketball post when Dan Clifford left for his current job as athletic administrator and assistant principal at Sumner of East Sullivan. Brown guided the Eagles to a 30-10 record during his tenure, including two trips to the Eastern Maine Class B semifinals.

Led by guards Corey DeWitt and Demetrios Katsiaficas, Ellsworth entered the tournament seeded third in 2005-06. The Eagles then defeated Mount View of Thorndike 51-48 in the quarterfinals before being ousted by Presque Isle 69-52 in the semifinals to finish the season with a 14-6 record.

This season Ellsworth won its last 15 regular-season games for a 15-3 record good for the No. 2 seed in Eastern B. The Eagles then outlasted Hermon 87-75 in triple overtime in the regional quarterfinals behind a Class B tournament single-game record of 52 points from DeWitt before dropping a 64-58 semifinal decision to Camden Hills of Rockport, the eventual EM champion.

Led again by DeWitt and Katsiaficas – both named McDonald’s East-West Senior All-Stars as well as members of the McDonalds’ Boys All-State Academic Team – Ellsworth concluded the 2006-07 season with a 16-4 record.

Before coming to Ellsworth, Brown had coached the girls basketball team at Schenck of East Millinocket for nine years. The Wolverines made nine consecutive tournament appearances during that span, and never entered postseason play ranked lower than fourth. That tenure was highlighted by a pair of Class C state championships in 1992 and 1995.

Brown said he hopes the Ellsworth vacancy will be filled later this spring.