When Gorham’s Kyra Chadbourne staked her team to a 1-0 lead in the first half of the Nov. 6 Class B state championship field hockey game, it was the culmination of an incredibly emotional two-month stretch.

For the last eight weeks, the 18-year-old senior right wing wasn’t really able to enjoy her team’s successful ride to an eventual state title because she was trying to come to terms with the shocking death of her 19-year-old cousin, who was just starting his freshman season at nearby University of Southern Maine.

Nick Leon grew up almost 200 miles away in Calais, but he and Chadbourne were as close as cousins could be.

“We’ve always had this special relationship and we’ve always kind of clicked. We had so much fun together,” Chadbourne said. “Everybody always said we looked like brother and sister.”

The fact they shared many common interests and were only a year apart in age also helped.

When Leon, a varsity soccer, basketball, and tennis player at Calais High School, chose USM for college, Chadbourne was thrilled because she’d see more of Nick and he would finally be able to see her play field hockey.

“That was kind of exciting,” she said. “Two days before… everything happened, I was going to call him to give him our schedule so he could come to our first game.”

But on Sept. 8, while trying to open a window, Leon leaned too far out and died after falling from his seventh-floor dormitory room.

That morning, Chadbourne opened the local paper to find a big picture of herself on the front of a fall sports preview section.

“That was a dream for me and I was so excited,” said Chadbourne.

But dream turned nightmare a few hours later when she was taken from her third period class to the office, where her parents waited to give her the awful news.

“I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t grasp it. I thought it had to be a mistake,” she recalled.

Chadbourne didn’t go back to class and field hockey practice was the last thing on her mind, but the day after Nick’s death, Gorham was due to take on traditional foe Kennebunk in one of the biggest games of the season.

“I really didn’t feel like playing, but coach called me and said I could do whatever I wanted,” Chadbourne said. “Then I went to Uncle Peter [Leon, Nick’s father] and told him about it.

“He said I should play, but I didn’t know if I could. I told him I’d play if he’d come watch me, and he said he’d watch if I’d score a goal for Nick.”

Chadbourne agreed and played, in her words, “phenomenally.” She broke in on the goalie in the first half and scored the only goal of the game, unassisted.

A few weeks later, as Gorham readied for the state final, Chadbourne made a promise to herself. She’d do all she could to score a goal in the game – for her team and for Nick.

“I hadn’t said anything but it was always in the back of my mind. God was with me through the whole thing. It was just amazing,” she said. “My uncle told me Nick would be with me, watching me. In the Kennebunk game, I truly felt he was there watching me, and I think he was there at the state game, too.”

So with her uncle (and Nick) watching, she scored the first goal of the game and the Rams went on to win 2-1 over Winslow.

It was ironic that one of the goal scorers in the game also happened to be a 1-year-old mascot for the 1982 Rams team coached by Demetria Chadbourne, Kyra’s mother. That team also won a state title.

“It was a perfect ending,” said Chadbourne, who would like to study science – specifically dentistry – and play field hockey in college, preferably at Yale.

Chadbourne finished as the team’s second-leading scorer with 11 goals, but she really only remembers two.

“Definitely,” she said. “I’ll never forget those goals. They were huge in more ways than one.”