A varsity football team gets only one chance to score the first victory in program history, so Calais-Woodland’s 48-6 victory over Mount View of Thorndike on Saturday will be memorable Down East on several counts.

But perhaps no one will have greater memories of that first win than Calais-Woodland senior Blake Ford, who scored six touchdowns, including five in the second half, as coach Ian Pratt’s club pulled away from what was a narrow 12-6 lead at intermission.

Ford scored on runs of 8, 7, 13, 18, 7 and 2 yards as the Silverados broke the game open with a 30-point third-quarter outburst.

“We just came out fired up,” said Ford, whose team had dropped its first two games of the season to Maine Central Institute of Pittsfield and John Bapst of Bangor. “We knew we had to get things going in the third quarter because this was one of those games we really needed to win.”

Ford finished the game with a robust 256 yards on 24 carries and was joined in the rushing success by Kevin Ross (13-73) and Shorey (10-64) out of the Silverados’ double-wing formation.

“It’s not me so much as it’s the offensive line that did the work,” said Ford, who cited the work up front of Josh Hunnewell, Nathan Phelps, Eddie Flaherty, Jordan McLellan, Jacob Sterner, Matt Cummings, Merrick Harding, Cal Shorey and Greg Jackson as pivotal to the success of a Calais ground game that averaged 8.4 yards per carry while amassing 393 yards.

Ford’s performance featured straight-ahead running, not surprising since the 6-foot, 235-pound fullback is also the reigning Class C state outdoor track champion in the shot put as well as a national-level Olympic power lifter.

Ford placed third in the ages 16-17 105-kilogram division of the 2008 USA Weightlifting School-age Nationals held at Disney’s Wide World of Sports at Orlando, Fla., an event that combines the clean-and-jerk and snatch lifts. Ford totaled 250 kilograms (550 pounds) during that event, his first trip to the nationals in a lifting career that has spanned the last four years since he and his family moved to Princeton – where his mother grew up – from Asheville, N.C.

Calais-Woodland will play its second-ever varsity home game Saturday against Stearns of Millinocket, which is off to a 3-0 start.

“This will be a real eye-opener for us this week,” said Ford.

Coutts takes Deering post

Mike Coutts, a former University of Maine third baseman who went on to serve as an assistant coach for the Black Bears for nine years under Dr. John Winkin, has been named the new head baseball coach at Deering of Portland.

Coutts replaces Mike D’Andrea, who resigned after the 2008 season in the aftermath of a party involving alleged underage drinking by Deering players that resulted in the firing of three Deering assistant coaches.

Coutts, co-owner of Frozen Ropes baseball and softball training franchises in Portland and Massachusetts, previously coached on the high school level at Edward Little of Auburn and Messalonskee of Oakland.

He coached at Maine from 1988 until 1997.

Coutts is a veteran Cape Cod League coach and he also coached the Sanford Mainers of the New England Collegiate Baseball League in 2007.

Coutts inherits a veteran Deering team that won the 2008 Class A state championship by defeating Brewer in eight innings in the state final.

Deering was the state’s dominant program under D’Andrea, winning state titles in seven of the last 11 years.

eclark@bangordailynews.net

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