Last year’s high school football state championship games won’t go down as competitive classics unless you’re from one of the schools or communities that took home the gold balls.
None of the four finals were decided by fewer than 20 points, with the average victory margin a whopping 28.7 points.
That doesn’t mean followers of this year’s state games Friday night and Saturday should necessarily expect more of the same — five of the seven finals played in 2012 and 2013 were decided by a touchdown or less.
Certainly participants in this year’s ultimate contests, beginning with Friday night’s Class D rematch between two-time defending state champion Oak Hill of Wales and Maine Central Institute of Pittsfield at the University of Maine in Orono, aren’t expecting anything less than a battle to the finish.
“Any time you’re competing for a state championship, you’re going to play 48 minutes of football, no doubt about it,” said MCI head coach Tom Bertrand, whose Huskies hope to win the school’s first state crown in the sport since 1974 while avenging last year’s 41-21 title-game loss to Oak Hill at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland.
But if a full four quarters of first-string participation is required to determine the winner of the Class D clash, it will mark the first time MCI’s starters have been required to go the distance this fall.
The 10-0 Huskies outscored their LTC opponents by an average of 47.4 points during the regular season, then defeated Orono in the Class D North semifinals and Mattanawcook Academy of Lincoln in the regional final by the nearly identical average of 47.0 points per game.
Only once have the Huskies’ starters taken the field during the fourth quarter of a game, that during MCI’s 61-0 victory over Mattanawcook during Week 4 of the regular season.
“We knew we needed to do it at some point, and we knew Mattanawcook was one of the top teams in our league,” recalled Bertrand. “Even though we jumped out to a lead, we decided we were going to stick with it and work with them. We did some things differently, but we needed to get them some game reps because we saw some games coming up where we didn’t feel like we were going to get that opportunity.”
While Oak Hill has the same record as MCI, fully half of its 10 victories have been decided by nine points or less. That includes the Raiders’ 13-10 Class D South semifinal victory over Winthrop-Monmouth and their 21-20 survival of Lisbon in the regional championship game.
“They’ve had to fight, fight, fight until the end in at least two of their playoff games.” said Bertrand. “I know their Lisbon game went right down to the end.”
But does Oak Hill’s frequency of close battles give it an advantage over an MCI team whose narrowest victory this fall was a 41-20 decision over Dexter in Week 7 of the regular season?
Bertrand doesn’t think so but said the ultimate answer will come on the artificial turf of Morse Field.
“We’ve talked about it all season,” he said. “We knew that at some point in the season we’re going to have to play four quarters of football, so we’ve worked to make sure our kids are ready for that both mentally and physically.”
That preparation has included creating pressurized practice scenarios involving time, downs and distance.
“Certainly it’s something that until you get a chance to do it in a game is an unknown,” said Bertrand, “but I have every confidence in the world that our kids are ready to play four quarters of football if that’s what it takes.”
Such confidence likely stems in great part from the team’s collective mission since the first day of preseason practices in August, to finish off a championship quest that came up a game short just a year ago.
“We’ve got one goal in mind,” said Bertrand. “We’re proud to be LTC champions and Northern Maine champions, but it’s not the ultimate goal.
“This is something we want that we need to really work hard to get from them. We’re playing the defending state champions, and they’re not going to give it up easy, so we’re anticipating four quarters of football, for sure.”
