CORINTH, Maine — Though he’s just a sophomore, Caleb Shaw recalls some of the darker days of the Central High School boys basketball. They weren’t that long ago.
From his sixth- through eighth-grade years, he witnessed two straight winless seasons at the varsity level, followed by a five-win campaign in 2013.
Now Shaw and the current Red Devils are working to change the basketball culture in the five small towns — Bradford, Corinth, Hudson, Kenduskeag and Stetson — served by their high school, with Friday night’s 54-40 victory over Dexter improving their record to 11-3.
“It was a pretty rough couple of years,” recalled Shaw, “so it’s kind of good for us now to start winning some games and have the reputation of Central get changed a little bit.”
Already assured just their second winning season since the turn of the century, the Red Devils matched the program’s 11-win campaign in 2006 with the win over Dexter and now are targeting Central’s 14-4 finish in 1999.
“When everyone contributes, we hard to beat.” said forward Kyle Ham, one of three juniors who have started since their freshman year. “When we come out like we did tonight it’s always good in the end.”
Ham, Shaw, fellow starters Grant Poulin and Andrew Prescott and sixth man Andrew Speed are among the juniors and sophomores on the squad who have been played together since their youth league days, endured the growing pains of seeing major varsity playing time early in their high school careers and now are starting to reap the benefits.
“A bunch of us have been playing together since we were in third and fourth grade,” said Shaw. “We have pretty good team chemistry, and I think that’s a big part of it.”
The program’s gradual growth — Central went 7-11 last winter before falling to Orono in the Eastern Maine Class C preliminary round — also can be traced to at least two other factors, the stability, persistence and disciplined approach of sixth-year coach Curt Davis and the commitment level not only of the players, but their support systems.
“I think the biggest thing that has helped this program has been not only the community support, but the parental support,” said Davis. “People are taking it serious, they’re putting time into it. It’s great to have kids who started playing at such a young age come up through. We’ve always had great kids, but if you’re not playing at a young age today it makes a big difference, and the parents have been willing to do what they need to do to make it competitive, and that means to travel with them and get them to Saturday, Monday, whatever day of the week basketball.”
Central spotted Dexter a 5-0 lead but took control of the contest by outscoring the 6-8 Tigers 20-4 over the next seven minutes to assume a 20-9 advantage on two free throws by 6-foot-5 center Jordan Smith — the Red Devils’ lone senior starter — with 6:20 left in the first half.
The Central lead was 26-12 at intermission, and while Dexter hung around behind the perimeter shooting of senior guard Matt Bartlett — the game’s high scorer with 19 points — the Red Devils countered with superior balance and never let the Tigers closer than nine points the rest of the way.
“Tonight we finally played like a team again,” said Ham, whose team was coming off a two-point loss at Orono earlier in the week. “We’d been lacking that in previous games and it’s good to see we’ve shown it again.”
Speed led Central offensively with 14 points, while Shaw finished with 10 points, seven rebounds and four assists and Ham chipped in with eight points and a game-high eight rebounds.
“We came out and played hard and did what we needed to do,” Ham said.
Central has a challenging remainder to its regular season schedule, including rematches with fellow contenders George Stevens Academy of Blue Hill, Piscataquis of Guilford and Lee Academy.
But having that same adjective — contender — applied to themselves already represents a big step forward for the Central Red Devils, and they’re hungry for more.
“That’s what we’re going for,” said Shaw. “We want to be known as the good Central and not the past Central. We want to put that behind us.”
