November 07, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Spencer, Braun up for full-time Old Town jobs

Old Town’s interim athletic director Garry Spencer will lose the interim part of his title should the Old Town School Board approve the move at its Tuesday night meeting.

Spencer stepped in as interim athletic director following the death of Bob Lahey in December 1994 and has been recommended to take the job full time by Superintendent of Schools Owen Maurais and Principal Don Sturgeon.

Ian Braun, who served as interim football coach this fall while Spencer served as AD, will also be recommended by Spencer for the gridiron job, and both appointments are subject to approval by the board.

Spencer will retain the girls varsity basketball job, which he has held for 11 years, on a year-to-year basis.

“The school committee was very good to me, they let me try the job for a year and they got to try me for a year,” Spencer said. “I think that I’ve grown better at my job with some guidance from the old hands, Dennis Kiah, Don Dow, Steve Vanidestine.

“I probably won’t always be a coach and this will be my athletic fix,” he said.

Braun served as an assistant football coach to Spencer at Old Town for two seasons before moving up into the head coaching job and was 2-7 in his first season.

“We weren’t really sure what was going to hapen with Garry’s situation, and my situation hinged upon that,” Braun said. “It’s quite a tradition to live up to, [former coach Jim] Walsh built up the program after some down years, took them to a state championship game and some LTC title games.

“Garry took them to the LTC title games, and we turned the corner last year,” he said.

The Caribou girls’ tennis team notched their 70th consecutive win Tuesday with a 5-0 decision against Van Buren.

The team, which ups its record to 11-0 on the season after defeating Presque Isle 5-0 Thursday, lost its top three singles players to graduation last season but the team is still perfect.

Caribou is the four-time defending Class A state champion and hasn’t lost a match since 1991.

The Round of 38 singles tourney gets under way at 8 a.m. today at the University of Maine’s tennis courts.

Three Eastern Maine high school tennis players managed to crack the top eight seedings for the event, including Orono’s Robbie Butler, Tricia O’Connor of Hampden Academy, and Misha Mytar of George Stevens Academy of Blue Hill.

Butler, who was eliminated in the quarterfinals last year by then No. 3 seed Andy Brenner of Yarmouth, captured the second seed behind Brenner in the boys’ lineup, while Shanna Gagnon of Biddeford took the girls’ top seed.

Biddeford freshman Karolina Pierko is in the No. 2 spot, followed by O’Connor at No. 3, and Mytar as the fifth seed.

An unseeded Mytar defeated two players before losing to Caitlin Tso of Waynflete in the quarterfinals last year.

Those surviving this round will go to the semifinals and finals at Cape Elizabeth High School May 22.

The Bangor girls and boys teams are billed to be the ones to beat at the Phi Mu Delta Track & Field Invitational at UMaine’s Clarence Beckett Track at 9:30 a.m. Saturday.


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