West finalists own combined six titles this decade

Western Maine’s three representatives to Saturday’s high school football state championship games have at least one thing in common.

Each already has won two gold balls during this decade.

Only Western Maine Class B champion Mountain Valley of Rumford is a defending champion among the three, as the Falcons defeated Winslow 24-16 in last year’s final at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland to go with their title in 2004, when they also defeated Winslow.

Bonny Eagle of Standish won its Class A state championships back-to-back in 2004 and 2005, defeating Bangor 29-19 in 2004 and Mt. Blue of Farmington 41-13 the following year before being ousted in the regional semifinals last fall.

Western C champion Boothbay is hoping to end the longest drought among the trio, as the Seahawks are making their first appearance in a state final since winning its state championships in 2001 and 2002. Boothbay defeated Bucksport 41-21 in 2001, then shaded its 2007 opponent, Foxcroft Academy, 25-20 in 2002.

Saturday’s championship tripleheader begins at 11:06 a.m. with the Class A game between Bonny Eagle (11-0) and Lawrence of Fairfield (11-0), followed at 2:30 p.m. by the Class C game between Boothbay (10-1) and Foxcroft Academy (11-0) and wrapping up with the 6 p.m. Class B final between Mountain Valley (10-1) and Gardiner (10-1).

In Class C, Boothbay, which avenged its only loss of the season by knocking off top-seeded Winthrop 28-21 in Saturday’s Western Maine title game, utilizes a double-wing offense that has proven most effective for 15th-year head coach Tim Rice.

The double-wing was installed by Boothbay 13 years ago after the Seahawks had won just one game in their first two seasons under Rice. Since then, Boothbay has missed postseason play just once and won three Western C titles to go with its two state crowns.

The double-wing features a tightly bunched offensive line, intricate blocking schemes and plenty of misdirection, and this year’s attack is guided by junior quarterback Sam Cook. Boothbay also relies heavily on tailbacks Tim Stover and Jason Tilton, each of whom rushed for more than 100 yards in the regional final.

The Seahawks also have a talented receiving threat in 6-foot-5 tight end Kris Noonan, also a standout basketball player at the school.

In what during preseason was considered somewhat of a rebuilding year at Boothbay, the Seahawks have averaged 33.7 points per season while earning the No. 2 seed in Western C and following that with a 14-12 semifinal win over No. 3 Jay before building a 28-8 lead and surviving a late Winthrop rally in the final.

Defensively, Boothbay is allowing 13.3 points per contest, and has yet to post a shutout this fall.

In Class B, Mountain Valley boasts the state’s best record regardless of class over the last four seasons at 43-3, with its worst season’s finish over that span a loss to York in the 2005 Western Maine championship game.

The Falcons, who in 2004 won their first state title since the merger of Rumford and Mexico high schools during the late 1980s, has won at least 10 games in each of the past four years.

Mountain Valley features a bruising ground game led by junior Justin Staires, a three-year starter who had more than 2,100 all-purpose yards as a sophomore and is closing in on 1,500 rushing yards this season, and fullback Matt Laubauskas. Senior Keith Brennick is the steady hand at quarterback for 19th-year Falcons coach Jim Aylward.

Mountain Valley dominated most of its opponents throughout the regular season and has outscored its opposition 435-48.

The Falcons’ lone bobble this fall came during the final weekend of the regular season, when they dropped a 16-14 decision to Cape Elizabeth. That relegated Mountain Valley to second place in Western B behind the Capers, but the second-seeded Falcons have responded with two straight postseason shutouts, a 34-0 semifinal victory over Fryeburg Academy and a 10-0 victory over Cape Elizabeth in the regional final.

The 5-foot-8, 209-pound Staires was the workhorse for Mountain Valley in the rematch against Cape Elizabeth, rushing for 152 yards and the game’s lone touchdown on 36 carries.

In Class A, Bonny Eagle’s football history is brief, with the school first fielding a football team in 1995. But the Scots have quickly built themselves into an elite team under 10th-year head coach Kevin Cooper, compiling a 42-3 record over the last four years.

Bonny Eagle, seeking to finish off its first undefeated season since 2004, uses a spread offense to capitalize on multiple offensive threats. It has averaged 43 points per games in postseason victories over Kennebunk (52-0), Deering of Portland (28-13) and Marshwood of South Berwick (49-16) in last Saturday’s Western Maine final.

The Scots feature one of the state’s top quarterbacks in junior Nate Doehler, a potent ground game that includes Josh Ruby, who rushed for 191 yards and two touchdowns on just 15 carries in last week’s game, and two top-notch receiving threats in tight ends John Onesti and Ricky Hoyt – all working behind the biggest front line of Cooper’s tenure at the Standish school.

The Class A final features a unique connection between the two schools. Cooper was the starting quarterback at Lawrence during the early 1980s and led the Bulldogs to back-to-back state championships in 1983 and 1984.

His high school coach was his father, Earle “Pete” Cooper, who guided the Bulldogs to three state titles overall during his long tenure at the Fairfield school and for whom the stadium at Keyes Field that Lawrence calls its football home is named.

Pete Cooper now serves as an assistant coach at Bonny Eagle as does one of Kevin Cooper’s former Lawrence teammates, John Suttie.