PITTSFIELD, Maine — The Maine Central Institute football team will make its second visit to state championship game activities at Portland’s Fitzpatrick Stadium in three years Saturday.
This trip will match the undefeated Huskies against defending state champion Oak Hill of Wales for the Class D state title beginning at 2:36 p.m.
The previous trip two years ago? Consider it a reconnaissance mission for a young team determined not only to put a winless 2012 campaign behind it, but to reverse that futility entirely.
“Two years ago after that 0-8 season we took our kids down to the [Foxcroft Academy-Winslow Class C] state game and watched and we asked them, ‘Do you guys want to get here?’” said MCI head coach Tom Bertrand. “We told them, ‘If you do, these are the things you have to do,’ and we made the changes we needed to make and the kids really made the commitment to do it.”
So this time instead of watching others play, the Huskies are the main attraction — with a 17-2 record since that first trip to Portland and 10-0 this fall after winning MCI’s first LTC title since 2000.
“We know it’s an incredible opportunity for us,” said MCI junior Greg Vigue, a third-year starter at quarterback. “When we look back and see all the hard work we’ve put into it and what it’s done for us, it’s motivation to take that final step and finish the job.”
That this year’s seniors and juniors saw as much playing time as they did in 2012 was part necessity and part promise. Numbers were low among that year’s senior and junior football classes at MCI, and the sophomores and freshmen were just two years removed from a 7-0-1 season and a middle-school league championship.
“That was kind of an eye-opener as to our capabilities in terms of what we could do when we got to high school,” said Vigue. “But coming into high school it’s a huge jump because you’re playing with four years of players rather than two, so we knew there was going to be a gap there and it wasn’t all going to happen right off. That was really obvious in that 0-8 season.”
Rather than be frustrated by the lack of instant success, the young Huskies endured and learned.
“It was really tough, but even at the end of that [2012] season we were all still together,” said MCI running back Jonathan Santiago, a senior who arrived at the school as a freshman from Lawrence, Massachusetts, with no organized football experience.
“We could have just given up and quit, but we had that brotherhood between us where we had a love of football, and outside of football we hung out together, too.”
Soon after the 2012 season ended, that brotherhood found an additional home — the MCI weight room.
“We started holding players accountable for coming into the weight room during the summer, and after football season it wasn’t like the season was over and we forgot about it, we were always together in the weight room,” said Santiago. “If you weren’t playing a winter sport you were in the weight room.”
The Huskies realized the benefits of that commitment at the outset of the 2013 season.
“We lost to Orono my first two years by a lot both times, and to come out last year and win at Orono and win big, we all realized this was real,” said MCI senior lineman Nick Deckert. “We had a new [no-huddle] offense that was working and we were bigger, faster, stronger. It was all something new and it was something good.”
MCI won its first seven games, before falling to eventual LTC champion Bucksport and then to Mattanawcook Academy of Lincoln in the conference semifinals, but the stage was set for 2014 — complete with some pressure.
“There was a little bit because we had high expectations for ourselves coming into the season,” said Vigue. “We set goals of where we wanted to get to and we knew what we were capable of doing. We just knew we had to go out and do it and that was the only way to shake that pressure.”
A Week 3 victory over Bucksport was the springboard to an undefeated run through the LTC despite midseason injuries to Santiago and backfield mate Eric Hathaway that tested the Huskies’ depth.
But junior fullback Alex Bertrand and sophomore halfbacks Willie Moss and Eli Bussell picked up the slack, and by the time Santiago and Hathaway returned the team was poised to outscore Mattanawcook and Bucksport by a combined 41-7 to win the LTC title.
MCI plays its final game Saturday with the chance to win the program’s first gold ball in 40 years, but must defeat an Oak Hill team armed with that championship experience fresh in its collective mind.
“For them being there last year gives them that edge and that confidence of having been there before,” said Deckert. “But for us, we know what we have to do. We’ve been watching film, we’ve been working hard. We’ve prepared ourselves for this game and as long as we can come out and do our thing, we’ll be alright.”
