The defending Class C state champion Fort Kent boys basketball team will be a run-and-gun unit under first year basketball coach Dom Rossignol this coming season.
The Warriors captured their first ever state title with a 70-63 victory over Maranacook High School of Readfield and former assistant Rossignol is ready to take over the program from Chad Cyr and try to lead them to another crown. He was named the new head coach earlier this summer.
Cyr retired after seven seasons so he can follow the career of the youngest of his three children, Austin, who will be a freshman basketball player at Fort Kent this season.
“I like to run,” said the 37-year-old Rossignol. “The depth we had the last couple of years gave us the ability to play a fast-paced game and be aggressive, defensively. We knew if we got one or two people in foul trouble, we would be able to survive because of the bodies we had off the bench.
“We will still have the bodies, and we will still have strength in numbers, but they will be more unproven early on. They are going to have to step into pretty big roles replacing the people who left, but I like to play fast and empower the players to play free.”
Seven seniors from last year’s 16-6 team have graduated, but six players will return including the standout Jeffers twins, Aden and Jaden.
“I want them to look forward to succeeding,” said Rossignol, a 2007 graduate of Madawaska High School who was an assistant under Cyr for three seasons.
Aden Jeffers’ buzzer-beater gave third seed Fort Kent a 48-47 win over top seed and defending state Class B titlist Caribou in the C North final.
“Our biggest strength last year was our depth, and if any team can afford to lose as many impact players as we did, it’s us,” said Rossignol. “We will still be able to start five guys who played very significant minutes last year. We’re still in a really good spot.”
He fully understands he is stepping into a unique situation, replacing a coach who not only guided the team to a state championship but the school’s first ever title. He acknowledged that it will put pressure on them.
“Now that we cracked the seal, I hope people aren’t expecting this to happen all the time because it’s difficult,” said Rossignol. “It took a perfect storm [last year].”
He noted that Fort Kent has always had a “good athletic history,” but what made last year’s team unique was the fact most of them were basketball-first players.
“We’ve always had athletes who do multiple things. They were primarily soccer players who were also pretty good basketball players. But last year’s group was primarily basketball players and some of them only played basketball,” Rossignol said.
The former Wisdom High School boys soccer and basketball coach said he is “really excited” about his new job.
“I knew Coach Cyr wasn’t going to do it forever. I saw the opportunity coming. I wasn’t happy about seeing him go. He obviously did a great job,” said Rossignol. “He always said when he was done coaching, he was going to be just a dad and not a coach in the stands.
“He said he would have my back 100 percent, and I believe him.”
Rossignol, an alternative education teacher in the district, began his coaching career his freshman year at the University of Maine at Presque Isle.
He was planning to play basketball at UMPI, but it didn’t work out so he took advantage of an opportunity presented to him previously by the late Todd Alley, the Fort Fairfield High School boys basketball coach.
“When I was attending [Fort Fairfield] Tiger camp in the summer, he told me he would love to have me coach with him someday,” said Rossignol, who coached the seventh grade boys team and also assisted Alley with the varsity boys team. “I had played against them the previous year and now they were listening to me as their coach.”
His 2026-27 team isn’t going to have any pure centers “but we will be pretty long.”
“They will cover a lot of the court, and the more you can cover the court defensively, the more you can use that to your advantage,” explained Rossignol. “You won’t be getting banged around in the paint too much.
“I will like to use our speed and athleticism to make it an 84-foot game, and we’ll have the athletes to do it.”