March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Maine’s Year in Sports

Each year brings out a number of events which stand out in the minds of the people who play them, watch them, and cover them.

The members of the NEWS sports staff, who spent a fair amount of time in the field covering the wide variety of sports which take place each year, were polled for their thoughts on the most significant event each of them witnessed in 1995.

The effort produced a diverse group of stories. We’re sure another whole set could be picked for equally good reasons.

One event which is conspicuous by its absence is the University of Maine’s one-year suspension of hockey coach Shawn Walsh and the banning of the team from the NCAA Tournament this season.

While there is no question this was a significant event, it has not played out completely. The NCAA must make a final determination of how Maine’s self-imposed penalties fit into the framework of penalties it would deem appropriate.

It’s hard to make a final judgment on its importance without it having reached a final outcome.

But that aside, here are the writers’ picks for the most significant events in Maine in 1995:

Rolling against the Tide

No sporting event from 1995 can eclipse the drama and emotion of Jan. 5, when the University of Maine women’s basketball team shocked 10th-ranked Alabama 75-73 at Alfond Arena in Orono.

At the outset, the then-record basketball crowd of 4,059 was abuzz with the anticipation of watching Maine take on a national-caliber opponent.

Alabama got the crowd’s attention, jumping out to an 8-0 lead and forcing a Maine timeout. When the Black Bears returned to the floor, they had shaken the jitters and began battling their way back.

Each Maine basket brought a crescendo of applause and cheers from a crowd that fed on every basket, rebound, and steal the Bears made. It was the Alabama game that ended any doubts about how freshman point guard Cindy Blodgett would fare as a Division I player.

Blodgett scored five baskets, including three 3-pointers, during a 17-8 scoring run that turned a 13-6 deficit into a 23-21 Maine lead 12 minutes into the first half. That surge proved to the hosts that the Tide would not necessarily roll.

However, ‘Bama center Yolanda Watkins owned the paint, scoring 13 first-half points to help keep the Tide on top 39-37 at halftime. And Watkins scored eight of Alabama’s first 10 points to open the second half as the visitors pulled out to a five-point lead.

Maine exhibited tremendous scoring balance and tenacity in the final 10 minutes, despite affording Alabama numerous second shots. Trailing 59-52, the Bears poured it on with an 18-4 flurry to take a 68-63 lead with 6:44 to play.

But the climax did not come until the final buzzer sounded, as the Tide got within a point on a Brittney Ezell 3-pointer with 9.9 seconds left. ‘Bama fouled to get the ball back, and Seana Dionne made one of two from the foul line.

Johnson drove the lane with time running out, but Maine’s Stacia Rustad made a defensive gem and tied her up. The Tide got the last shot, but it missed and the Bears earned national recognition with a win that vaulted them to the North Atlantic Conference title and a spot in the NCAA Tournament. – Pete Warner

Worthy football opponents

An undefeated season is a miracle.

Witness the high school football season for Stearns of Millinocket. An 11-game, no-loss season accomplished by an array of talented athletes and a coach committed to the game.

Greatness isn’t always defined by fabulous throws and receptions or game statistics.

Stearns’ 7-6 Class C state championship victory against a 9-2 Winthrop team led by senior Tom Trenholm, who had three consecutive seasons of 100-plus tackles to his credit, was one such case.

The game was a linemen’s classic. It was a game in which the leading blockers were in the pit, grinding it out, trying to open up holes for running backs whose carries were 2- and 3-yard efforts.

But after the final seconds were drained from schoolboy careers, and fans flooded the field, and players slumped to the ground, grace and sportsmanship took over.

Stearns senior tackle Jared Ripton sought out Trenholm for a final word and a clap on the back. Other Stearns players followed suit, holding up the line to shake hands and whisper congratulations and words of respect.

Trenholm attempted to bring an inconsolable Garrett Levy, clad in the jersey worn by coach Chris Kempton’s brothers as a reward for all-out play in the Western Maine championship but who missed the Ramblers’ winning field goal attempt with 2.7 seconds remaining, to his feet and back to the postgame huddle.

Unable to do so, Trenholm quietly asked a television cameraman filming Levy’s lament to stop. Somewhat stunned, the man complied.

No trash-talking or taunting. No spiking the ball or carrying on after a play’s completion. No taunting the referees, coaches or players.

Just the game and the players who respected it and each other enough to honor the day. – Katrina Veeder

Classic basketball

Normally a painfully difficult thing to do, deciding on my most memorable sports moment for this year couldn’t have been easier.

Even now I can still clearly see Brewer High School’s Jason Leighton pulling up in front of the Bangor Auditorium press table to launch that 50-foot, cruise-missile shot that swished through the net at the buzzer in double overtime and give Brewer as dramatic a victory as possible.

With four seconds to play, Leighton took an inbounds pass, dribbled twice, and let the ball fly.

It was late Saturday morning, March 4, when Brewer took on Mt. Blue of Farmington in an Eastern Maine Class A boys tournament quarterfinal that would by now be labeled an all-time classic had it been a regional or state championship game.

Thanks to Leighton’s heave from way beyond half-court, the Witches survived the double-overtime thriller 85-84.

The scene at the end of the game is unforgettable: a mass of fans clad in orange and black flooding the court; the sight of Mt. Blue center Jon Zarecki, emotionally spent and unable to believe what had happened, collapsed and lying on the court; and all of the members of press row erupting out of their seats at the same time, barely able to contain their excitement.

The shot was a fitting end to a contest featuring everything: huge scoring runs and furious comebacks by both teams; at least a dozen late, momentum-changing plays; and 42 minutes of edge-of-your-seat basketball action.

It was the kind of game that makes tournament basketball so popular with Eastern Maine fans. You never know when you’ll witness a classic. – Andrew Neff

Striper comeback

The outstanding outdoors story for 1995 that sticks in my mind is about the incredible striped bass fishing that anglers enjoyed in the estuaries of Maine rivers. From the Saco to the St. Croix, “stripers” provided fast fishing for novice as well as experienced anglers.

Runs of the anadromous fish were heaviest, however, in midcoast rivers. Without exaggeration, the tides in the Kennebec, Sheepscot, Damariscotta, and New Meadows rivers often were silvered with migrations of the sporty fish.

You may know, however, that the Kennebec’s native spawning populations of striped bass were eradicated by industrial and municipal pollution before this century reached middle age. Thankfully, extensive pollution abatement programs in the 1970s resulted in dramatic improvements in water quality. So it was that in 1982 the Department of Marine Resources initiated a striped bass restoration program in the Kennebec estuary. Simply put, it was a milestone effort that became a monumental success.

As schools of stripers returned to the Kennebec and other midcoast rivers, interest in fishing for them rose like a new-moon tide. As a conservation measure to increase spawning escapement, anglers were restricted to a daily limit of one striper measuring no less than 36 inches in length. Because of the tremendous returns of school stripers to Maine rivers in the last few years – fish measuring 16-25 inches – proposals were made to reduce the legal length limit to 28 inches. Anglers, however, felt that would foul-hook the remarkable recovery of the fishery and flatly refused.

Accordingly, Gov. Angus King recently stated there will be no commercial fishing of striped bass in Maine for as long as he is governor. Obviously, Maine’s striped bass restoration program is solidly hooked and is being played with a tight line. – Tom Hennessey

Valiant runner

It was that first assignment at the end of September when I was introduced to Maine sports after moving to Vacationland. And after the event was over, I had to wonder what kind of brave and brash athletes I would encounter in my future as a sports reporter in this new place.

The event itself was insignificant in the grand scheme of the high school fall season. But the young man I watched running amid hundreds of high school harriers at the MDI Invitational caused me to ponder my own high school and collegiate track career, the world-class athletes I’ve run against, and the Olympians I trained with at Georgetown University.

It all seemed ordinary compared to the sight of Willy Tuell competing.

When the East Machias senior ran by me I was already heading down a hill to the finish line to interview the winners. But the thin, persistent runner with the thick glasses caught my attention.

With his guide and friend Ric Lamoureux holding his hand and leading the way, I suspected then, and learned later, that Tuell is legally blind.

Yet he was racing. What’s more, he was breathing hard and covering ground like everyone else. And, in that completely sick sense only runners can appreciate, he was out there enjoying the pain.

The chill that came as I watched Tuell running was unforgettable. So when I was fortunate to run into him and his mother, Jennifer, at the Eastern Maine Championships, his last high school race, I had to interview him.

Tuell’s display of valor makes competing in a state championship, even an NCAA championship, seem like nothing when you consider the prospect of not being able to compete at all.

Watching Tuell overcome adversity made me wonder if he gained his determination from years of training as a runner or if he was successful in cross country because of the depth of his self-respect and pridecross country because of the depth of his self-respect and pride. Or maybe all of the above. – Deirdre Fleming

Pressure cooker

It was a rare moment for the golfers and spectators gathered around the 18th green at Kebo Valley Golf Club in Bar Harbor on the sunny evening of June 18 during the final round of the Bangor Daily News Amateur Golf Tournament.

For more than 20 years, Mark Plummer of Manchester has been the man to beat when it comes to Maine amateur golf, and everyone in the state who plays knows it.

Players either have watched him leave them in the dust or have looked over their shoulder to see if he was roaring up from behind.

The pressure was always there, on Plummer as much as on his foes, but Plummer seemed to take the pressure, twist it in his beefy hands, and turn it to his benefit.

Sure, he has lost his share of tournaments, but seldom one where he was still in it at the end.

Bob Girvan II of Kenduskeag and Plummer were tied for the lead coming down the final hole that Sunday. Girvan’s five-stroke lead had evaporated by the end of the first nine holes.

The outcome came down to the final shots. It’s usually by this point that the pressure kicks in, but Girvan was hanging in.

Girvan hit his approach shot first because his drive came up short of Plummer’s typical blast off the tee. Girvan’s ball rolled to a stop about 30 feet beyond the pin.

Plummer settled in and tried to hit a little wedge to the green. Inexplicably, he hit the ball fat, took a big divot, and popped the ball into the air. It fell only 30 feet from its starting position.

Girvan still felt the pressure, but he was in control and two-putted for par and the victory.

Only time will tell if this was an aberration or if Plummer is joining the ranks of golf mortals.

But then, a month later Plummer nearly knocked off Tiger Woods in the semifinals of the U.S. Amateur, with Woods pulling out the win on the 18th and final hole. Hmmm. – Dave Barber

Fantastic finish

I had the opportunity to witness several stirring comebacks in 1995 and the best of the lot occurred during a University of Maine-Delaware field hockey game in September.

The Black Bears were trailing 1-0 with 55 seconds left and the ball was close to their goal line.

I turned to University of Maine sports information specialist Joe Roberts and said, “There is no way they can move the ball the length of the field and score in 55 seconds. This game is over.”

With the long list of infractions in the sport and the fact they were playing on a grass field, leading to bad bounces that cause various infractions, I figured Maine was done.

If the Bears committed one infraction, Delaware would take its time setting up the free hit and the game would be over.

But, amazingly, Maine’s Jeni Turner swatted the ball a long way up field and teammate Karen Hebert, left unmarked, was able to run onto the ball.

Hebert, who has one of the best shots on the team, was able to unleash a low, hard shot that was saved by Delaware goalie Kim Lockbaum.

But the rebound came right to Wendy DuBois, who deposited it into the empty net to tie it.

Time elapsed: 26 seconds.

Maine went on to win the game 2-1 in overtime, and Maine Coach Terry Kix categorized the win as the “most exciting for our program and the University of Maine.”

The overtime was also memorable because of the overtime procedure.

Under NCAA rules, each team must remove four players and play with seven in the overtime.

That really opens the game up and presents a much greater opportunity for scoring chances.

It is a method soccer ought to consider. – Larry Mahoney


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