Oak Hill’s Austin Pierce gets ready to stiff-arm Yarmouth linebacker Ben Gleason, left, during a September 2017 game at Oak Hill High School in Wales. Pierce is playing in the Lobster Bowl after having his senior season shortened by an injury. (Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal)
DOVER-FOXCROFT — Former Lisbon coach Dick Mynahan said one of the highlights of coaching at the Lobster Bowl is phoning the players to let them know they made the all-star team.
Even better is telling the players whose senior season was shortened by injuries.
“I made a point to ask everyone of them to come here so they could end football on a better note than they did,” said Mynahan, the head coach of the West team. “That makes it special to them, and that’s a lot of what this game’s about.”
Among those players on the West team are Oak Hill’s Austin Pierce, Yarmouth’s Henry Venden and Kennebunk’s Jacob Littlefield.
Pierce, a tight end, had a nice senior year going until he broke his collarbone in the middle of the season.
“He was just starting to make huge strides, and was having a really good senior season,” said Oak Hill coach Stacen Doucette, the West’s offensive coordinator. “Then he broke his collarbone — a tough ending. As a football player, you don’t want it to end that way. You want to end it the right way.”
Pierce hasn’t played since his injury, but he’s adjusting nicely to being back on a football field.
“To be back, it’s great, Pierce said. “It’s been 10 months, so definitely getting back in the rhythm of things.”
Saturday’s game won’t be Pierce’s last time on a football field. He’s one of many Lobster Bowl players who will continue their careers at Husson University this fall.
But he’s savoring this week and Saturday’s game all the same.
“Last time for high school and last time being able to play under Coach Doucette, so it still means a lot,” Pierce said.
Hampered by injuries
Winthrop/Monmouth’s Luke St. Hilaire and Lisbon’s Noah Buiniskas, both lineman on the West squad, might not have missed games, but their senior seasons were diminished by injuries.
St. Hilaire was limited by knee pain all season, and Buiniskas played through a torn meniscus and a fractured femur.
“He had some injuries this season, so he probably didn’t have the senior season that he really wanted,” Lisbon coach Chris Kates said. “So anytime you can give a kid one more opportunity to play and maybe redeem himself a little bit for how their senior season went, it’s always great to see that.”
Buiniskas’ injuries came in the third week of his senior year.
“I played the rest of the season. It wasn’t the same,” he said. “So being out here 100 percent is definitely a lot better. Nice to be healthy.”
St. Hilaire tore his ACL in the 2016 Class D South final loss to Lisbon. The injury lingered and limited him throughout the 2017 season.
“The injuries are still there,” St. Hilaire said. “But it’s a lot of fun being out there, you know. It’s great to get one last opportunity.”
St. Hilaire is playing on the defensive line for the West. That’s a bit of an adjustment because his injury prevented him from playing much on the defensive side of the ball in 2017.
“I played probably 20 snaps of defense during the season, so it’s a bit of a throwback,” St. Hilaire said. “I didn’t play much defense my junior year, either, because we had such a stacked line.
“It’s definitely different, but it’s all coming back to me, bit by bit. And it feels great to just get out there and fly.”
One of the advantages of playing on the defensive line is that his position coach is Dave St. Hilaire — his father and his coach at Winthrop/Monmouth.
“It’s great. He’s been coaching me since third grade,” Luke St. Hilaire said. “It’s just good to have him here one last time. I figured I’d be done with him, but, you know, one last week. But it feels great.”
Buiniskas will continue playing football this fall at Anna Maria College in Paxton, Massachusetts.
For Luke St. Hilaire, though, the Lobster Bowl is the end of his football career.
“This is my last game,” he said. “I guess it just means that I can go all out and give everything I’ve got, truly. There’s no other opportunities, might as well go hard right now.
“Last season, the wear and tear of an entire season, that got to me. But now all I got to do is last one week and play one game, and that’s all I got to worry about.”
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