The Eagles, who wrapped up their season in the playoff quarterfinals, finished with a 10-6 record, which included regular season wins against Ellsworth, above. By Anne Berleant
Blue Hill—After a hard-fought loss in overtime to Orono in the playoff quarterfinals, the George Stevens varsity boys soccer team wrapped up its 2018 season with a 10-6 record.
The quarterfinal loss was played in two matches over two days, when darkness ended the first day’s match after two overtime periods and a batch of penalty kicks failed to break a tie.
“It doesn’t matter when or how you lose your last game. It stings just the same. I think the team knows they put forth their best effort,” Coach Mark Ensworth said.
For eight players on the roster—seniors Chris Bennett, Ethan Vinall, Jeremiah Scheff, Ricardo Sanchez, Eric Mote, Memphis Parker, Meredith Bradshaw Thomas and Tobin McMahon-Allwine —that game was their last high school match, leaving room next year for younger players.
“I have said this before, you can’t replace a senior class, but you can create a new identity as new players step up and take on new roles. A new year will be a new puzzle. It will be up to us coaches to put them in positions for them to succeed,” Ensworth said. “With this senior class leaving there will be new opportunities opening up.”
Reserve players step up
The Eagles started the season strong, dipped a bit in the middle, and then held steady at the end for a seventh spot in the Heal Point Standings heading into the playoffs. The Eagles split regular season games with Orono, lost twice to Houlton and the Class B Mount Desert Island team, and swept all other teams—Bucksport, Deer Isle-Stonington, Searsport, Dexter, and Class B Ellsworth.
“How a team starts compared to how it ends is often very different,” Ensworth said. “Between things that happen throughout the season to things that don’t work and need to be changed. The goal is to always be playing your best soccer at the end regardless of what your roster looks like. I feel like we did that.”
By the last regular season games, the roster had changed, with Ensworth calling on some of his reserve players to take a more active role.
“Who you have available at the end of the season is who you are as a team,” he said. “When someone forfeits their spot, it opens a door for someone else. This year we had a few people really step up.
“[Senior] Eric Mote went from being a key reserve on rotation to playing 80 minutes a game down the stretch. [Junior] Lars Hooper scored key goals for us, including one in each of the Orono games. [Junior] Parker Allen did everything we asked for and more in goal. We are fortunate to be as deep as we are.”