Brewer High School field hockey coach Sarah Estes and her assistant and father, Skip Estes, didn’t want to play Old Town in the Eastern Maine Class B field hockey playoffs.
That’s because the daughter-father tandem had spent the previous two seasons coaching the Old Town girls, led the Coyotes to a dramatic turnaround and developed a strong bond with the players.
But that is what occurred, and the fourth-seeded Coyotes ousted No. 5 Brewer 2-1 on Saturday, although the Witches had the better of the play.
“It wouldn’t have been fun to beat them, and it certainly wasn’t much fun to lose to them,” Sarah Estes said. “I would have rather played someone else. But you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”
Skip Estes said it was very hard coaching against the Old Town players.
“Those kids are very talented. It was a tough decision for the two of us to leave. Old Town was great for us,” he said.
The teams didn’t meet during the regular season because Brewer is in the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference and Old Town is in the Penobscot Valley Athletic Conference.
But Sarah Estes said that doesn’t mean they aren’t familiar with each other.
“These girls were rivals in middle school. They each beat everybody else in middle school, so when they played each other, it was a big game,” she said.
It also was odd for the Old Town girls who played in the Eastern Maine Class B championship game a year ago under the Estes duo before losing to eventual state champion Nokomis High of Newport 1-0.
The Coyotes finished 14-2-1 last season.
Sarah and Skip Estes guided Old Town to a 9-5-1 season in 2012 after the Coyotes had gone 7-23-3 over the previous three seasons.
“It was really weird playing against our old coach,” said Old Town sophomore midfielder-defender Lauren Gasaway, who assisted on both goals in the win. “It made us want to play better and play harder. She did a very good job coaching us.”
“It was nerve-wracking,” said sophomore left wing Brooke Sulinski, who scored the game-winner with 1:30 remaining in regulation. “We all wanted to step it up as much as we could.”
Brewer wound up 7-7-1, and Old Town was 9-6 entering Tuesday’s semifinal at top seed Gardiner.
The Coyotes, under coach Jamie Flagg, are one of the youngest teams in Eastern Maine Class B with just two seniors and one junior on the roster. They have eight sophomores and six freshmen.
“They’re going to be strong for a long time,” said Skip Estes.
The Estes coaches will work together again this spring as Skip Estes is the head softball coach at Brewer High and Sarah Estes is his assistant.