MILLINOCKET – Given his preference, Derek DiFrederico might not be the quarterback of the Stearns High School football team.

“I’d probably rather play tailback than quarterback,” said DiFrederico, a senior who will lead the 9-1 Minutemen into Saturday’s LTC Class C championship game at 10-0 Foxcroft Academy. “I’d rather run the ball than throw it, but if Coach wants me to play quarterback and that’s the best position for me and the team, then I’ll do it.”

A look at the regular-season statistics suggests DiFrederico is enjoying the best of both positions. He ranked third in the LTC with 678 passing yards, and sixth in the conference with 569 rushing yards.

“Derek’s one of the top guys in the league in rushing as a quarterback,” said Stearns coach Chris Preble. “He’s real instinctive and that’s one reason we put him at quarterback. We wanted to give defenses another back to defend, so we put the ball in his hands every play and defenses have got an extra guy to key on besides the fullback and tailback.”

DiFrederico began his high school career at tailback, then took over at quarterback as a sophomore.

“Derek actually won the quarterback position by mistake,” Preble said. “He really didn’t want to play it, but I asked him to learn the position to be a good backup, thinking that another kid would be the starter. But with his competitive nature he ended up winning the position, and with the type of team we had at that time, it suited him more.

“The other kid was a good passer, but Derek is such a good competitor and was willing to run and stick his nose in there and do the little things, and that really proved to make a difference,” Preble added.

DiFrederico guided the Minutemen to a playoff berth, but was set return to tailback as a junior. That switch lasted less than one game. The new QB was injured during the first half, and DiFrederico returned behind center and went on to pass for 687 yards and rush for 570 yards as Stearns again qualified for postseason play.

“Derek stepped back in at quarterback and has never said a word about it since,” said Preble. “He’s taken over, and the other kids have followed him.”

This year, DiFrederico and fellow captains Matt Barnett, Craig Cullen and Matt Wark have led Stearns to the brink of an LTC title, thanks largely to a strong ground game and the conference’s top-ranked defense.

“Our defense has stepped up a lot, said DiFrederico, a linebacker and safety who led the LTC in tackles as a sophomore. “Hard work in the off-season has been important. A lot of us worked hard in the weight room, and our coaches have pushed us in practice to be the best that we can.”

Ask Preble, and no one pushes DiFrederico – also one of Eastern Maine’s top basketball players – harder than himself.

“He has a tremendous work ethic,” Preble said. “In the summer he never misses workouts. I’ve never once had to ask him to come to the weight room or run; he’s doing it on his own and he doesn’t do it just when people are watching, he does it because it’s important to him and he knows it will pay off in the end.”

For now, DiFrederico is motivated by the moment, the chance to lead Stearns to its first LTC crown since 1998. To do that, the Minutemen will have to defeat a Foxcroft team that eliminated them from the playoffs each of the last two years and won a 14-13 regular-season decision at Dover-Foxcroft earlier this fall.

“We know we can play with them,” DiFrederico said. “The last couple years we didn’t have as good a team as they did. They were probably expected to beat us by a lot but we still played with them.

“But I think this year we’re pretty much even.”