Deftly fielding a reporter’s late-afternoon Sunday phone call that probably interrupted a New England Patriots game, Lewiston boys’ basketball coach Tim Farrar forecast in November that his team had “a chance to do something special.”
Well, he slam-dunked that prediction. Poster quality, too, even if “special” stopped two wins shy of every team’s dare-to-dream aspiration.
Lewiston enjoyed the privilege, although that’s the last way the Blue Devils would describe it now, of being a Class A East runner-up to Hampden.
Mt. Blue, Lawrence and Oxford Hills all know the feeling. The Devils were oh-so-close, like the Cougars and Bulldogs before them, but fell 65-57 Saturday at Augusta Civic Center.
Special? Lewiston trips to the regional final are so rare that the previous coach to accomplish it is now Superintendent of Schools in Yarmouth. Farrar was a grammar school student in the Oxford Hills system when his high school role models beat Lewiston in 1990. Biddeford broke the Devils’ heart again the next winter.
“It’s something that hasn’t been done since Andy Dolloff was the coach. He did it twice,” Farrar said. “When (current athletic director Jason) Fuller was the coach, he was close, and Fern Masse got there in the 1960s. I did feel like we had a chance to do something special, but that doesn’t just happen because I think it should happen. They believed in themselves.”
Shepherding that brand of confidence in the Devils has been 90 percent of the battle for every coach since Dolloff.
If you have lived in the community more than a day or two, you understand why. Hockey pucks, not basketballs, are dropped into cribs to entice toddler boys as soon as they’re old enough to pull themselves up to a standing position.
And when the attitude over the years hasn’t been one of apathy, it has been a game of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Poor grades, defections, even game-ending brawls derailed promising past seasons.
Even though it was the behavior of one or two individuals, and while extenuating circumstances and other schools were involved, fairly or not, the Devils’ reputation as a program suffered.
Farrar and this group of seniors changed all that. To a man, the Devils were engaged and engaging this season.
No longer would Lewiston settle for the satisfaction of merely making the tournament. No longer would it be a distant second in the Twin Cities, giving away the nominal “rivalry” game at crunch time. No longer would poor decisions or player defections make the Devils the poster team for unfulfilled potential.
“It’s a process,” Farrar said. “This is why it’s attached to education. It’s a learning curve, and you can’t replicate in any classroom what these kids did and the way they performed.”
Lewiston didn’t have to meet silly expectations, because, well, there were none outside their camp.
Based largely upon the volatile reputation the Devils wield with their peers, despite the presence of 10 seniors, KVAC coaches essentially announced in their preseason poll that Lewiston wouldn’t make the tournament.
Even with a Division I athlete in Isaiah Harris. Even with a 6-foot-10 center in Trever Irish. Even with a veteran backcourt in Ace Curry and Ryan Bell.
Chipped shoulders and all, Lewiston won four of its first five games, then went into the all-too-familiar tailspin. Four consecutive losses, including a double-overtime thriller at Hampden. Benchings. Ultimatums, probably.
“Some teams would quit,” Farrar said. “This one didn’t.”
After sliding to 6-6 in an overtime loss at Oxford Hills , Lewiston won five consecutive games. It let EL off the ropes in their regular-season finale, then routed Cony in the quarterfinals and exorcised the Eddies’ demon in the semis.
Many programs have enjoyed a run or two from deep in the tournament field, but few have flaunted the staying power to hang with the Big Three of Hampden, EL and Bangor in the past decade.
Farrar and the Devils might, although they’ll barely draw whisper in any 2015-16 coaches’ poll. Few players with varsity experience will don the blue and white.
“We had some underclassmen who are good, and I kept saying, ‘You’re not going to play much this year, but you will next year.’ They’re here. Our eighth-grade kids are here,” Farrar said. “That’s a big step for us. We love hockey, football. Cheerleading’s really good. I think we can be a basketball town, too.”
When that happens, we’ll all know when it started, and the answer to that question isn’t 1960, or 1965, or 1990, or 1991. It’s February 14-21, 2015.
“I’m proud of everything I accomplished and the whole team accomplished,” Harris, who will run track and field at Penn State, said. “It’s something Lewiston hadn’t done in years. It’s been a run. It’s been fun.”
Minor correction, Isaiah. It has been special. Undeniably, deliciously, historically special.
Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His email is koakes@sunjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Oaksie72.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
