Blue Devils meet lofty expectations

The beginning of the 2007-08 schoolboy basketball season brought out a few doubters about the ability of the Calais Blue Devils to maintain their championship status.

Several of the key players who helped the Blue Devils win back-to-back state titles in 2006 and 2007 had graduated, after all, and player turnover often is what separates a great team from an enduring program.

The pressure to live up to the program’s immediate past may have seemed considerable, but not something this year’s group of talented teenagers hasn’t been able to handle.

“It’s easy to cope with that with these guys because we’re all pretty close,” said Cal Shorey, a 6-foot-4 junior forward who has yet to lose a countable game in his high school career.

And the proof of that rests in the fact the winning streak that started with the first game of the 2005-06 campaign is still intact, at 63 games and counting heading into Saturday night’s state final against Winthrop at the Augusta Civic Center – a rematch of the 2006 state game won by Calais 56-49.

The unbeaten Blue Devils have been as dominant as ever from game to game this winter – only EM runner-up Lee Academy has come within single digits of Calais, and that came twice during the regular season.

When they met a third time in the regional final Saturday night, there was no last-minute angst, as Calais cruised to a 77-54 victory over the second-ranked Pandas.

“This is a different team,” said Calais coach Ed Leeman after the game. I’m just happy for the kids and proud of what they’ve been able to do. For me as a coach it’s more of a relief.”

The bond between the present and past of this Calais boys basketball juggernaut also was in evidence in the aftermath of Saturday’s game, as a number of Blue Devils from the school’s 2006 and 2007 title teams were on hand at the Bangor Auditorium to share in the celebration of the program’s third straight regional crown.

“To see a lot of the kids here from the other teams supporting this group says a lot about how the tradition has been passed along,” said Leeman.

Blue Devils in rare territory

Its primary goal is one win away, but the Calais boys basketball team already is in some rarefied championship air.

With their 77-54 win over Lee Academy, the Blue Devils became the first boys program to win three consecutive Eastern C titles since Katahdin of Stacyville from 1981 through 1983, and is only the third team in the division to win three in a row since the 1950s.

Sumner of East Sullivan won five straight Eastern C crowns from 1969 through 1973.

While Katahdin lost all three of its state championship game appearances during its streak, Sumner won two of the five state finals during its run. The Tigers defeated Freeport 61-45 in 1970 and Yarmouth 101-63 in 1973.

Calais, which defeated Winthrop 56-49 in the 2006 state final and Boothbay 70-66 last year, will have the chance to become the first Class C team to win three state championships in a row statewide since Falmouth in 1997, 1998 and 1999.

No Eastern C boys champion has gone on to win three consecutive state titles since at least 1956, and only two Class C teams from the region, Hodgdon in 1995 and 1996 and John Bapst of Bangor in 1989 and 1990, have won two in a row.

eclark@bangordailynews.net

990-8045