Bangor High assistant boys soccer coach Don Erb was named the National Soccer Coaches Association of America/adidas North Region Assistant Coach of the Year on Tuesday.

The Orono native will now be eligible for the national assistant coach award. The winner will be announced at a Jan. 18 banquet in Baltimore.

Criteria for selection as an assistant coach of the year include service to the school’s soccer program, commitment to soccer education and work in player development.

Bangor head coach Adam Leach, who was the 2006 New England Regional Coach of the Year, nominated Erb because of the contributions his assistant has made, particularly in the defensive half of the field.

The Rams allowed just nine goals in 2006, the year they won the school’s first-ever Class A state soccer championship.

Bangor’s defense got even better this year, allowing just five goals, which Leach said was best in the state among all classes.

“He’s a very perceptive soccer mind, especially with defense,” said Leach, who announced in August this would be his final season after nine years with the Rams. “If you look at the stats over the last nine years, since I got there, the defense has improved ever since he started working with the varsity every day.”

Erb, who teaches math at Bangor High School, was the junior varsity boys coach under Leach until 2004, when Erb was named to the newly created varsity assistant job.

“It’s really been more like a team,” Leach said. “I know for a fact we wouldn’t have won the state championship without him.”

Erb had previously coached the boys team at Hermon High School, where he also coached girls basketball. His previous basketball coaching honors include Big East Conference Class B Coach of the Year in 2002 and Eastern B Conference Coach of the Year in 1999.

He is the second Maine assistant in a row to receive the coaching honor. Falmouth’s Todd Whitcomb won it in 2006.

More Ram records fall

The Bangor girls swim team broke two more school records Friday at the Morse Invitational in Bath. One of those was a 200-yard medley relay mark that the Rams had been getting close to all winter.

Also Friday, Bangor senior Erin Thomas broke her own 100 backstroke record.

A team of Thomas, who led off in the backstroke leg, Sorrell Cardello (breaststroke), Grace Barnell (butterfly) and Tatjana Spanehl (freestyle) clocked a time of 1 minute, 56.07 seconds, bettering the previous record of 1:56.97. All four are seniors.

Thomas’ new backstroke record is 1:01.04. Her previous best time this season, which she posted during a Dec. 14 meet against Foxcroft Academy, was 1:01.18. That shattered the old record of 1:02.15.

Bangor finished second overall in the Morse Invitational with 126 points to 140 for the host Shipbuilders.

jbloch@bangordailynews.net

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