BREWER, Maine — Mount View High School of Thorndike experienced its best football season this fall since joining the varsity ranks in 2007.
The Mustangs finished third in the final LTC Class D North regular-season standings and concluded the year with a 7-3 record after making their first trip to the conference semifinals.
Two key contributors to that effort were honored during the 29th annual LTC All-Star Banquet on Sunday. Mount View senior running back and defensive end Tyler Ripley was recognized as the conference’s player of the year, and the Mustangs’ Haggie Pratt was named coach of the year.
Ripley scored a league-best 21 rushing touchdowns during the regular season while gaining 1,213 yards on 133 carries. He also had two touchdown receptions.
Ripley was selected for the award from a slate of nominees that included Hayden Craig of Bucksport, Bryce Salsbury of Dexter, Devin Wright of Ellsworth/Sumner, Garrett Ring of Houlton, Scott Jipson of Mattanawcook, Cole Ashmore of Medomak Valley of Waldoboro, Alex Bertrand of Maine Central Institute of Pittsfield, Jackson Coutts of Orono, Colby Waceken of Stearns and Pat Finn of Washington Academy in East Machias.
Ripley was one of six players to earn All-LTC first-team honors on both offense and defense, a group that included Mount View offensive guard/linebacker Ethan Sewall-Berry — who was named the LTC’s offensive lineman of the year.
The other four two-way, first-teamers came from LTC champion MCI: Offensive and defensive lineman Mike Steeves, tight end/defensive end Dillon Fitts, wide receiver/defensive back Braden Monteyro and offensive guard/nose guard Curtis McLeod, the league’s defensive lineman of the year.
Coutts earned first-team recognition at two offensive positions, quarterback and punter.
Pratt, in his third season at Mount View after stints at Dexter and Nokomis of Newport, guided the Mustangs to their first playoff berth since 2011. This year’s Mount View team boasted the LTC’s top rushing offense, averaging 368 yards on the ground during the regular season.
Bucksport senior Jake Gauvin received the eighth annual Silvernail Academic Scholar Award, a $3,000 scholarship based on academic merit involving such criteria as cumulative grade point average and honors courses and advanced-placement classes taken.
The award is named for Andy Silvernail, who played offensive guard and linebacker at Bucksport during the 1980s and went on to play at Dartmouth until a back injury curtailed his career.
Silvernail is a business executive who, with his wife, Shelby, established the scholarship as an expression of gratitude for what playing the sport and in particular playing in the LTC meant in shaping his life.
Also presented during the banquet were the inaugural Ken Libbey Memorial Scholarships. This scholarship fund was created this year in honor of the former head football coach at Mattanawcook Academy and Mount Desert Island High School of Bar Harbor who died at age 53 on April 11, 1997.
LTC coaches volunteered to conduct the annual Eastern Maine Football Academy at Orono High School this summer rather than receive stipends, with player registration fees instead re-invested in the college futures of some of the campers while recognizing the memory of a former colleague.
As a result, Ripley and Jack Axsom of Mount View, Austin Smith of Class C John Bapst of Bangor, Andrew Cookson of Orono and Greg Vigue of MCI each received a $1,000 scholarship.
