LEWISTON – As far as coach Mike McGraw is concerned, none of it matters.
All the cliches about how the soccer team has a target on its back? Doesn’t matter.
The mad flurry of attention from local, national and international media? Yesterday’s news.
The celebrating is done, the trophy is in its case and a new season awaits. Coach McGraw means to be ready.
“The championship was outstanding,” the coach said. “But it’s done. It’s over. I’m done with that.”
With the arrival of the new season, everybody is going to be out to get the Lewiston High School soccer team, which won its first championship last November.
It’s just the way sports work. You scrape and claw and battle your way to the very top and then everybody else is just dying to knock you off.
“We understand – we really understand – that when teams play us, they’re going to play us really hard because they’re playing last year’s champions,” McGraw says. “The team understands the expectations that are on them. They’re going to play their hearts out. I think what they need is to get knocked around a little bit. We’re going to have to go through some adversity and then grow from that. And I think we will.”
There will be adversity, all right. It’s especially profound with this particular team, which so dazzled the world last fall.
Days after their Nov. 7 championship win over Scarborough, CNN published a lengthy piece titled “How Soccer Made Refugees American,” which highlighted the number of immigrant players who helped propel the team to greatness.
USA Today published a similar piece. A documentary was produced about the team, windy speeches were made by civic leaders and media came calling from around the globe.
Pressure? What pressure?
“We loved it,” said midfielder Joseph Kalilwa, a senior this year.
“We know there will be some new challenges this year,” added Mwesa Mulonda, “but once we get organized, it won’t be a problem.”
The attention isn’t going to go away any time soon, either. Already in this young new season, droves of fans have been showing up just for practices and scrimmages. Everybody wants to know if the Blue Devils can re-create the magic of 2015. But the coach is confident that his players can shake off those distractions and get back to work.
“This unexpected attention, the kids have been pretty good dealing with it,” McGraw said, “but that’s over now. We’re back to normal. We’re practicing and playing like I think we should.”
“It’s not going to be a problem,” said midfielder Maulid Abdow, who scored the game-winning goal to secure the championship last fall. “There’s nothing hard about it. We’re not worried.”
That’s good, because nobody expects the 2016 season to be an easy time. Scarborough, defeated by one goal as Lewiston claimed the championship last fall, will be gunning for them, certainly. But there are other strong teams in the conference – Bangor, Camden Hills and Hampden in particular – who will have plenty to say about whether or not the Lewiston team can repeat.
One key to the Lewiston team’s success may lie in the number of players who are coming back. Juniors last year, players like Maulid Abdow, Joseph Kalilwa and Mwesa Mulonda, will be bringing their championship experience — and some of that team chemistry, speed and ball movement so celebrated after last year’s victory — back to the table.
“The seniors that we have, they fully understand what it takes,” McGraw said. “It’s their job to lead the other players to play as hard as they have in the past. They understand that there’s a lot of pressure on them to perform and do well again.”
And they’ll have to do it without their all-time leading scorer: Abdi Shariff, who scored 22 goals during the regular season and another four in the postseason last year, has graduated and moved on.
Then there’s McGraw himself, a man going into his 34th season with the Lewiston High School boys soccer team. With that many years behind him, one might think the coach would be tempted to coast a little.
“That’s not part of my personality,” McGraw said. “I’m like a giant neuron. I’m on fire all the time. Forget about other things, we’ve got tomorrow to deal with.”
When it comes to his coaching philosophy, in other words, what happened last year just doesn’t matter.
“Everything is the same,” McGraw said. “My approach is the same. I listen to my captains, I listen to my coaches, I listen to the people that I trust. It’s a new year.”
On Thursday, at the Lewiston High School field, the boys soccer team faced off against Scarborough for the first time since the championship. It was only a scrimmage, but there was a distinct big-game air about it.
The stands started filling up a half hour before game time, with dozens of fans buzzing about the rematch. There was tension and there was anxiety, as though the regular season had begun.
On the field, though, the champion Blue Devils looked relaxed. It’s a new year that comes with the understanding that nothing is going to be easy. Other teams aren’t looking just to squeak by the now famed Lewiston squad, they want to punish the reigning champions. Make them pay.
To this, Coach McGraw starts humming a few lines from The Grateful Dead’s “Touch of Gray.” It seems completely out of content until he starts singing the lyrics, too.
“We will survive,” the coach says. “Just like the song says.”
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