Here we are, and here we go again.
It’s high school football championship week. For the second consecutive year, two tri-county teams – the Leavitt Hornets and Oak Hill Raiders – have earned their invitations to the party.
Are you surprised? If you are, I respectfully submit that perhaps you haven’t been paying attention.
I’ve had fun monitoring the discussion about Leavitt since summer two-a-days. I picked Leavitt to finish second in Class C West. Doing so made me dizzy and queasy, even though I knew it was entirely logical, practical, respectable, and every other adjective from a Supertramp song not to anoint them the favorite.
Leavitt lost 16 of 22 starters to graduation. That’s a tricky number to juggle in any preseason, since this is Maine high school football, where most marquee players never leave the field.
Essentially it meant that the Hornets had three guys back. Spruce Mountain, Wells and Cape Elizabeth returned veterans at almost every skill position. I had people laughing and calling me a homer for supposing that the reigning state champion could finish second in its division. It’s funny how much abuse you take, how many accusations of grandstanding you face, when a team that you cover is good and (gadzooks!) you write about them regularly.
September results were all about perception, too. When Leavitt lost in double overtime to Cape Elizabeth after giving up what was essentially a Hail Mary on the final play of regulation in Week 1, detractors waved crooked fingers. “Ah, see? Rebuilding year.” The patient among us, those who had seen this movie before and weren’t prisoners of right now, saw it as evidence of how good the Hornets could be.
When you’ve won two state titles, won the regional four times and lost all of one regular-season game in the previous five autumns, you’ve earned the right to use every shred of disrespect as motivation. Leavitt didn’t have to work hard to find it, either.
Early in the season, I was privy to an upstart opponent poking the nest. To borrow the modern vernacular, ample talking of smack took place. Even the more thoughtful adults took to social media, anticipating what would be a signature victory. The Hornets shut down that chatter by scoring touchdowns at the rate of roughly one per 90 seconds in the first quarter.
By the time Leavitt ripped through a month of overmatched opponents, then sandwiched two heavyweight title bout victories over Wells around a convincing win over preseason favorite Spruce, everybody was back on the bandwagon. Makes me wonder what provoked all the doubt. A lot of us were obsessed with “proven” commodities, I guess, without recognizing that the Hornets had nothing to prove.
What part of the championship equation didn’t the Hornets have? Coaching? The best, up and down the sideline, and a ratio of one for each of the 50-something kids on the roster (only half-kidding). Athletes? Leavitt has a quarterback who can throw it on a dime and three guys 6-foot-3 or taller who can jump through the roof. Heart and tradition? Next question.
Maine’s greatest show on turf is headed for Morse Field at Alfond Stadium in Orono on Friday night. Don’t make the trip, and you’re bound to miss something special.
And then there’s defending Class D champion Oak Hill.
I absolutely adore the fact that the Raiders won two of their three regional playoff games by the Harvard vs. Yale in 1900 score of 7-6.
There is nothing overtly exciting about what Oak Hill does, unless you count the fact that, oh, sure, they have the most prolific backfield tandem in state history. Find me two classmates other than Kyle Flaherty and Alex Mace who have ever rolled up 4,000 career yards apiece, and I’ll buy you a steak dinner.
They bleed the clock and move the chains. An Oak Hill football contest is played almost as quickly as the fourth period of an NBA playoff game. Even when the Raiders don’t score, they gobble up eight minutes, leave you in lousy field position and demoralize the living daylights out of you.
Oak Hill is what “the Patriot Way” would be if the Patriot Way didn’t involve deception, disloyalty and parole officers. The Raiders are evidence of what happens when you have a coach, athletes and community operating in complete harmony. They look you in the eye and tell you they’re a team without stars, even though they flagrantly have a few.
When one of those stars gets hurt and misses a game or two or three, they don’t sulk. Next man up, a concept that doesn’t work with most Class D depth charts that are thin as the paper upon which they’re scribbled, suits Oak Hill perfectly. Injuries don’t faze them. Lousy weather doesn’t annoy them. Doubters don’t even persuade them to blink.
It’s easy to forget that the Raiders also lost two of their best players – four-year starting quarterback Parker Asselin and Gaziano Award-winning lineman Luke Washburn – to graduation. It almost seemed to galvanize them and make them better. It helped them self-affix that underdog label, even if nobody else believed it.
Maine’s little engine that can, and will, is taking its one heartbeat and earnest belief that it will win to Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland on Saturday. Don’t make the trip, and you’ll miss Exhibit A of what youth team sports are all about.
Let’s go. Again.
Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His email is koakes@sunjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Oaksie72.
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