PORTLAND – All week long, the refrain was pretty much the same whether you were in Bangor or Waterboro:

This is Massabesic’s year … Anyone who goes unbeaten in the Southern Maine Athletic Association should have no trouble with whoever the Pine Tree Conference sends down to the Class A state championship football game … Bangor will be lucky if they stay with two touchdowns … This game should be over by halftime.

A few other facts added fuel to the bandwagon fire: Massabesic is believed to be the first team in SMAA history to have two players rush for more than 1,000 yards, the Mustangs’ interior lines average 250 pounds per starter, no East team has won a state Class A final since 1984, and no Bangor team has won a gold football since 1979.

This was hype of Super Bowl proportions. In fact, the Massabesic buildup got so bad, one Western Maine sports reporter even insinuated Bangor was a second-class opponent by asking Massabesic head coach John Morin if he was disappointed his team was playing Bangor instead of defending East champ Oxford Hills, which Bangor edged 7-0 in the prior weekend’s PTC championship.

Never mind the fact Bangor was the PTC’s top-seeded team with a record of 9-1, the only blemish being a 21-14 loss to Oxford Hills on the road. Never mind Bangor was a postseason football fixture with eight straight playoff appearances.

Never mind that the game was anything but a rout.

No, Bangor’s Rams didn’t walk off Fitzpatrick Stadium’s thick green field with the gold ball, but they did carry something into their locker rooms, onto the buses, and all the way home: RESPECT.

“Those Bangor kids were probably told all week that they weren’t supposed to be able to play with us by a lot of people, but they came down here and showed what kind of pride they have in Bangor football,” Morin said. “We didn’t expect anything different from a Gabby Price team than what we got today. We knew it was going to be a rock fight. We just happened to have one more rock in our bag than they did.”

And that extra rock was an eight-yard touchdown run by fullback Joe Olszewski with 59 seconds left in the game to provide the winning margin of 26-21.

So much for that much-anticipated blowout.

“I knew from watching tapes that they were a great team, but I did think we were gonna do a little bit better against them,” said slotback-linebacker Rob Noble, who had two touchdown catches in the game. “They just came out hard and played a great game.”

“It was a close game and we were a little surprised,” Olszewski admitted. “But they played awesome the whole game. They’re a good team … They deserved to be here too.”

That comes as no surprise to Rams head coach Gabby Price, who wound up his ninth season season since returning to Bangor in 1992 and 18th overall.

“We just can’t say enough great things about our players. Massabesic’s a great team and our kids just laid their hearts on the field and did everything they could to win,” Price said. “We’re proud of our kids and I do know that Bangor High School is a proud high school and we have some proud people in our town.”

Massabesic special teams coach Andrew Soldati should know. He was an all-state lineman for the Rams under Gerry Hodge in the early 1970’s and an assistant coach for Price from 1978 to 1984.

“You can’t take a Bangor team lightly, not with him [Price] coaching. He’s one of the best in the state,” Soldati said. “He had a great defensive game plan against us and he should be very proud of his team. They gave us all we could handle.”

Bangor scored on its opening possession and took a 14-6 lead into halftime before a second half resurgence gave Massabesic a 20-14 lead late in the third quarter. The two teams traded touchdowns and leads in the final 31/2 minutes before it was finally settled.

Despite Massabesic’s big size advantage, Bangor was able to hold its own on the line of scrimmage.

“We have more size then they do, but those kids hit hard. They really did,” Soldati said.

That fact didn’t go unnoticed by Mustang players either.

“I thought they were a lot tougher than [defending state champ] South Portland,” said linebacker Mike Bennett. “South Portland was a little quicker, but Bangor had bigger backs and a good line.”