PITTSFIELD, Maine — Not only is Maine Central Institute the reigning king of the Class D North football world, the story of its recent rise to power has become the road map for the other nine LTC programs trying to track the Huskies down this fall.
Winless in 2012, coach Tom Bertrand’s club is 20-2 over the last two seasons with two regional championships. So dominant was MCI a year ago that the Huskies scored their 10 victories against conference foes by an average of 47 points.
Now it’s up to the Huskies’ rivals to close that considerable gap.
“You’ve got to be committed to the work, that’s first and foremost,” said second-year Mattanawcook Academy of Lincoln head coach Pat House, whose team lost to MCI in last year’s LTC final. “That’s one thing that Tom has done great down there and it’s something that we’ve talked about here, that we’re not looking to win this season but we’re looking to win every season.
“We’re trying to build a program that carries over to each sport and really changes the culture of our school. I think that’s what MCI’s been able to do. They’ve got a real confidence and now it’s almost an intimidating presence for a lot of schools when they go down there.
“They’ve also obviously had some kids who have been really committed to the weight room,” House added, “and then you throw a few skill kids in there and that’s what makes a great team.”
Perhaps the best evidence of House’s description of the Pittsfield program is that despite two years of major graduation losses, MCI again is the consensus favorite to rule Class D North.
“We’ve obviously had a big turnover the last couple of years with those strong senior classes graduating,” said Bertrand, “but we’ve seen some real leadership step up with this year’s senior and junior classes.
“That was something we were wondering about, whether we were going to be able to fill that void, but they’ve answered that call and we’ve got some kids who have stepped up big, so we’re in pretty good shape.”
That leadership will come largely from captains Eli Bussell, Clark Morrison, Josh Buker and coach Bertand’s son, Adam Bertrand, along with fellow impact seniors Willie Moss and Jeffrey Boutwell.
Moss was a 1,000-yard rusher last fall and will team with Bussell and Adam Bertrand to provide a diversified ground game. Buker takes over at quarterback after starting at wide receiver a year ago, with Boutwell and Morrison likely to be his favorite targets.
Some newer faces will play prominent roles along the line of scrimmage, but the Huskies are expected to focus on what has worked for them since the growing pains of 2012.
“We’ve been pretty successful at what we do,” said coach Bertrand. “We’ve tweaked some things and I’ve always been somebody who will look at what we’ve got for a skill set and what we have for size and speed and adjust offensively, but we’re not changing up things a whole lot. We’re doing what we do and hoping to get really good at it.”
Mattanawcook looms as a primary challenger to the MCI reign, with Carter Ward a third-year starter at quarterback armed with a talented stable of weapons led by junior halfback Matt Young and sophomore receivers Alex Brown and Cayden Spencer-Thompson — a state triple jump champion as a freshman.
“This year we’ve got a lot of hungry kids who are pretty athletic, and some who are really athletic, that we feel like we can get in space and have them be threats to the defense,” said House.
After a 2015 season where new teams emerged as forces within the league — Mount View of Thorndike, Medomak Valley of Waldoboro and Ellsworth-Sumner went a combined 18-8 while Houlton earned its first playoff berth — the battle for LTC playoff berths should be fierce.
That’s particularly true after league officials whittled the playoff field from six teams to four with the drop in membership from 12 schools to 10 this year with Medomak Valley of Waldoboro shifted to Class D South and Camden Hills of Rockport dropping to subvarsity status midway through last season.
Nine teams will be eligible for those four spots, with Ellsworth-Sumner completing the developmental stage of its young program before beginning its pursuit of a playoff berth in 2017.
Mount View, coming off the best season in program history after reaching the LTC semifinals last fall, again should be a contender under 2015 LTC coach of the year Haggie Pratt, while Orono features the talented leadership of seniors Jackson Coutts and Keenan Collett to fuel its bid for a return to postseason play.
Bucksport will look to bounce back from a rare sub-.500 season, while a Dexter club led by a strong senior class will seek a playoff encore after its fifth-place finish in the league last year and Stearns of Millinocket and Washington Academy of East Machias will work toward upward mobility and their own playoff contention.
Then there’s Houlton, which went 4-4 in just its second season of varsity competition to battle its way into the 2015 playoffs. The Shiretowners return just five seniors, but some solid experience among the returning underclassmen and the confidence gained from that postseason experience leave coach Brian Reynolds and his squad looking forward optimistically.
“I think there will be a lot more parity in the league this season but the road to the LTC championship will continue to go through Pittsfield,” Reynolds said. “There doesn’t appear to be any easy games on the schedule so we will need to embrace that grind if we want to be successful.”
