ROCKPORT, Maine — Every two years the Maine Principals’ Association reclassifies high school varsity athletic teams throughout the state based upon fluctuations in enrollment.
And every two years that process leaves coaches and athletic administrators at more than a few schools waiting and wondering whether their programs might become one of the smallest in a higher-enrollment class or one of the largest in a class of smaller schools.
The difference in being just above or below an enrollment cutoff line can be significant.
Take Brewer High School’s football program, which has struggled during recent cycles when it was one of the smallest programs in large-school Class A but has thrived in the smaller Class B ranks — winning a state championship in 2005, reaching the Class B North final last fall and taking a 7-1 record into Friday night’s regional semifinal against Cony of Augusta at Doyle Field.
Indeed, relatively rare is the circumstance when an athletic program thrust into a higher class by enrollment changes can maintain or build on its previous level of success in a smaller-school division.
But when the Camden Hills of Rockport boys and girls soccer teams arrive in Bangor on Wednesday to play the Rams in a Class A North championship doubleheader, the Windjammers will do so just two years removed from prominence in Class B.
That’s because Camden Hills was above the Class A minimum for the first time during the last reclassification process — by four students with an enrollment of 669 as of April 1, 2014.
Part of the reason for the sustained success in the new class stems from the quality of the existing high school teams. The Camden Hills boys soccer team won three-consecutive Eastern Maine Class B championships from 2011 through 2013 and reached the regional semifinals in both 2014 — the Windjammers’ last year in Class B — and 2015 — their first year in Class A.
The girls team doesn’t have quite the same championship pedigree but has been a consistent postseason qualifier and advanced to the Eastern B semifinals in both 2012 and 2014 before falling to Bangor in the Class A regional final last fall.
“I think with your top-level programs across the state there’s not as much of a difference between the classes as people might think there is,” said Ryan Hurley, the boys varsity soccer coach at Camden Hills since 2010. “But I think in the middle to the bottom of the conferences when you have a lot more kids to pull from, you’re naturally going to have more athletes on the field, so I think the depth level’s much better in [Class A] than in [Class B].
“You can do really well in [Class B] with a great defense and one or two great players, but you can’t do that in [Class A]. Everybody’s got to be able to play,” he said.
But the primary source of that Class A-level depth in talent is the local soccer infrastructure, where opportunities are now available in the Five Towns (Appleton-Camden-Hope-Lincolnville-Rockport) area for aspiring soccer enthusiasts to begin participating in the sport as early as age 4.
“You can’t get there without it,” said Hurley, whose high school program this year boasts 57 divided among varsity, junior varsity and freshman teams. “You’re not going to create soccer players just when they arrive as freshmen. Most of the work is done long before they get here.”
Beyond the local middle-school and high school teams, the Pen Bay Soccer Club fields age-group travel teams for youngsters ages 8 to 13, DSA United organizes premier teams for older, more elite players, and The Pitch, an indoor soccer facility in neighboring Warren, provides year-round access to the sport for all ages.
“We just happen to be in an area where right now soccer is a passion sport, the kids really love to play,” said Meredith Messer, the 21st-year girls varsity soccer coach at Camden Hills. “We’re fortunate to be in a community that is supportive and loves the sport.”
The presence of the Pen Bay Soccer Club and DSA United has in some ways meant less traveling for local players seeking the best in off-season competition, and that has translated into more players seeking out that level of competition through those hometown clubs.
“First of all, I always try to get the kids to do as many sports as possible because I believe that’s the best way to become a well-rounded athlete because you learn things from everything you do,” said Hurley. “Fortunately, they’ve structured the clubs down here so kids can still play three sports and do that, too, if they want to.
“When I first got here, there was maybe just one kid in each class who played travel, but now more kids are doing it because it’s nearby, a lot more accessible than it used to be when I had kids driving to Portland or Bangor during the winter. No parent really wants that,” he said.
Messer began noticing the collective impact of all the soccer outlets in the area on her program some seven to eight years ago.
“I remember the days when Winslow had an indoor facility nearby and they had Brittany Morin and some other kids who were just fantastic,” she said. “They would always start the season at a high level, and I’d tell the girls to wait until the end of the season because after 10 weeks we’d be able to compete, because I had kids who hadn’t touched a soccer ball since the end of October the year before, and when we started again in August, we’d be starting over.
“Now we have kids who are playing all the time, so you don’t have to take that first three or four weeks to one, get them in shape, and two, get their touch back,” she added.
There also are more immediate contributions being made to the high school program by younger players these days.
This Camden Hills girls squad, seeded second in Class A North with a 15-1 record, starts three freshmen and four sophomores.
While the influence of underclassmen isn’t so pronounced on the boys team, the advanced skills the younger players bring into the program have made it easier for the Windjammers to adapt to their Class A competition while changing how Hurley approaches his job.
“I do a lot less instructing on basic skills than I did seven years ago,” said Hurley, whose team this fall is 11-4-1 and ranked fifth in Class A North. “I don’t have to teach kids how to pass now, so you get to focus more on the tactical side of things, which is what everybody always falls in love with. That’s exciting.”
Messer said the quality of the feeder system similarly has allowed her to provide her high school players more sophisticated instruction, which has enabled her teams not only to be competitive with the best teams in Class B, but now the best of Class A.
“One of the things I said about last year’s team was that I got to coach them about some tactical things that I’d never coached before because they were now at a level where physically they could do it, so it opened them up to more high-level attacking strategies,” she said.
“I could start coaching in a different place because we didn’t have to spend as much time on ball touches,” she added.
Camden Hills’ enrollment for the two-year classification cycle that begins next fall is 667, just two less than the the last cycle and two more than the Class A minimum.
But with the majority of public schools statewide losing enrollment at a much greater rate — 75 percent of the Maine Principals’ Association-member high schools now have less than 600 students — it’s likely the Windjammers’ soccer teams will call Class A home for the foreseeable future.
With the infrastructure for success that’s in place, it’s a big-school existence they don’t really mind.
“Travel-wise it’s pretty rough at times,” said Hurley. “But I love the competition.”
