LISBON — Brian Dube is a fixture at Lisbon High School, often being seen at basketball games, or watching the Greyhounds do battle in football or in softball.
The Lisbon girls soccer program will see a lot of more of Dube this season, as he has taken over for former coach Jake Gentle.
On Monday morning, Dube put the Greyhounds through the paces in rather comfortable conditions when considering the high humidity and 90-degree temperatures last week.
“Do this drill with speed!” Dube belted out during a drill, looking for forwards and defenders to play quickly.
Often with a smile on his face, the father of Lauren and husband to Brandy seemed to be having a good time along with his players. And he saw a team that was in shape and ready to learn.
“The weather has been really tough, but the great thing about our girls is that half of them play three sports, along with summer basketball, summer soccer, travel teams,” Dube said. “They are really in shape. The thing that is a challenge is the skill.”
Dube takes the classroom facet of being a student-athlete seriously.
“To steal a line from (Lisbon co-curricular counselor) Eric Hall, ‘Champions in the classroom first, champions on the field second,'” Dube said. “I have been a teacher for 20-some years. In the end, you don’t remember the victories. You remember the friendships.”
Dube has taught social studies, English and special education at Lisbon High School since 1994 after graduating from the University of Maine-Farmington. He is a Lewiston native, having played ice hockey and soccer for the Blue Devils. Dube assisted with Lewiston boys soccer leader Mike McGraw, and started a 3-5-year-old soccer league through the Lewiston Recreation Department.
Now comes the challenge of improving on Lisbon’s 8-6 record from 2015, a season that ended with a 3-1 Class C South quarterfinal loss to Madison. A major part of that challenge is replacing the scoring of graduated Deliah Schreiber.
“This team was very good on defense, but offensively the leading goal scorer Deliah Schreiber had most of the goals, so how do you replace that?” said Dube. “This is the challenge for us: where are the goals going to come from?
“Our strength is in the backfield. We have some talent there, and the defense might be stronger this year than it was last year. But I am still looking for those players that can score. I have looked for that in the summer, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
With 20 players working out Monday, injuries are a concern for the new coach, who has already lost one player before the first practice had even begun.
“We have a captain (Kipri Steele) who was injured in summer soccer that will miss six weeks, so we are starting a bit behind,” Dube said. “We may have some transfers, and I hope after the school year starts that we end up with 25.”
The early schedule favors Dube’s squad, as the Greyhounds open with plenty of home games.
“We start off with four of our first six games at home, so, to me, we need to win those, maybe three out of four, then on the road for a stretch. That is tough. The conference is tough. It will be tough for us,” Dube said.
Throughout the summer, Dube has preached the possession game to the Greyhounds, a bit of a change from the past few seasons, years that saw Lisbon find varying degrees of success, with playoff appearances throughout Gentle’s time on the bench.
“The biggest thing is getting rid of the kick-and-run mentality,” said Dube. “We talked about that today in our chalk talk. It is OK to clear the ball, but we don’t want to give possession back to the other team. We may have some growing pains early, but we want to work on the possession game.”
Lisbon opens the regular season Sept. 2 at Mountain Valley before hosting rival Oak Hill on Sept. 6.
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