Nokomis, Mount View happy to kick off season First-year programs play first games Sept. 1

Eastern Maine’s two newest varsity football teams squared off Monday night in Newport.

It’s not the first time Nokomis has hosted Mount View of Thorndike on the gridiron, but it may have been the most important to date for the fledgling programs.

When they met before, they were in developmental mode, preparing for the year when they would join the varsity ranks.

That year is 2007.

Both programs are less than two weeks away from playing their first official varsity games. Nokomis will host Old Town in a Pine Tree Conference Class B opener on Saturday, Sept. 1, the same afternoon Mount View will host Stearns of Millinocket in an LTC Class C game on its “home” field at Belfast Area High School.

“It feels awesome,” said Nokomis senior lineman Nathan Baird. “It puts a whole other goal ahead of you that wasn’t there before.”

That ultimate goal is a championship, a goal both programs have worked for several years to be in position to join the chase.

“I’m always playing for a championship,” said Nokomis coach David Evans, who has won three previous Class C state titles while coaching at Dexter (1987) and Stearns of Millinocket (1991, 1992). “You don’t go hunting for bear and shoot squirrels. We’re hunting for the bear.”

Both programs have their roots in the former Moosehead Trail Football League, a non-school affiliated program that had youth-level teams in such communities as Unity, Hartland, Newport and Hudson.

Eventually both Nokomis and Mount View accepted football as a club entity, and now varsity status under veteran coaches Ron Simmons of Mount View and Evans.

Both teams have played developmental high school schedules the last two years, though Nokomis accelerated its learning curve in 2006 by playing PTC Class A schools during the bye weeks of those teams’ regular-season schedules.

“Last year was like a whole other level,” said Nokomis senior wingback and defensive end J.C. White. “People were thinking we played JV, but we had mostly varsity teams coming in and hitting us.”

When the teams met in a scrimmage Monday night, the benefits of that experience were evident, as Nokomis controlled play at the line of the scrimmage and scored the only touchdowns.

“It was a heck of a boost to anything we that we might have had doubt in,” said White. “It’s just a good way to start the season off.”

And both teams benefited from having someone else to test their progress against after six days of double sessions working against teammates or blocking pads.

“What I felt we got out of it was the chance go have some live play instead of going against each other,” said Simmons, whose team was led by quarterback Edwin Santana and defensive end Ed Rodriguez. “Nokomis is a well-coached team, so when you play them whether it’s a scrimmage like this or a game you have to be ready for different looks.

“They ran a 4-4 defense against us and we weren’t quite ready to block it. It showed what we need to work on.”

Senior AAU team finds success

A local team made up of past and future schoolboy basketball standouts recently became the first senior-level team from Maine to compete at the AAU national championship tournament at Disney’s Wide World of Sports in Orlando, Fla.

The Maine Hoops squad, led by recently graduated Hampden Academy guard Daniel McCue, finished 3-2 in age-group play, which in the senior division includes players who have graduated from high school and are intending to go on to play at the collegiate or junior college level.

Other players on the team included former Mt. Blue of Farmington standout Isaiah Brathwaite, who will play at Thomas College next season, and Medomak Valley of Waldoboro sharpshooter Colin O’Donnell, who is headed to Wentworth in the fall.

Also representing Maine Hoops were recent Messalonskee of Oakland graduate Nick Natole, Jon Doyen of Lawrence of Fairfield, Tyler Kelly of Thornton Academy of Saco, guard Antonio Juco and forward Jacob Moore, both of Hampden Academy, and forward Tyler Belote of Brewer.

McCue, a point guard who will play at Massachusetts Institute of Technology next winter, led the team to a 2-1 record and first-place finish in its pool before it earned a one-point playoff victory over the San Marcos Saints from Louisiana.

That advanced the team to the quarterfinals, where it was eliminated by the Club Indiana Bulldogs 76-68 to finish eighth among 20 participating teams.