Gardiner football players run a play during an Aug. 19 football practice in Gardiner. Andy Molloy/Kennebec Journal
AUGUSTA — The annual Cony-Gardiner football showdown will take on a new twist this season.
For starters, the game will be played on a neutral site — 7 p.m. Friday at Messalonskee High School — for what is believed to be the first time in the history of the series, which dates to 1892. Delays to turf field construction at Cony and Gardiner forced the schools to move the annual showdown. The Tigers and the Rams will be playing their home games on Messalonskee’s turf field, although Cony hopes to get on its new field at some point this fall.
The teams are also coming off a pandemic-altered season, in which they played a 7-on-7 game last fall.
“First we had the 7-on-7 stuff, then the promise of spring season that never went fulfilled,” Gardiner coach Pat Munzing said. “Now, this year, neither team has a field. You just can’t make this stuff up.”
Added Cony coach B.L. Lippert: “This is a dramatic departure from the regular Cony-Gardiner games. It’s pretty foreign playing this rivalry game on turf. I don’t think we’ve ever done that.”
The Tigers and the Rams will meet in a preseason game for the first time since 2012 — a 26-15 Cony victory. The Rams hold a 75-58-10 lead in the overall series.
“It’s a different feel having it in August,” Lippert said. “It’s preseason, so it doesn’t count for the records but it does for the record books.”
The teams will also play in their color uniforms — Gardiner in black and Cony in red.
“We decided to do it this year as a color rush thing,” said Munzing, whose team scrimmaged Belfast on Saturday. “We wanted to change it up, bring more excitement to it. It puts a different twist on this thing.”
Munzing added that while both teams would prefer to play in the regular season, a preseason game has its advantages.
Cony quarterback James Presti looks down the field for a receiver during a hot early morning football practice on Aug. 19 in Augusta. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
“Well, it helps carry the second week of preseason,” he said. “The physicality of football can wear you down after that first week, but now, for us, there is no letdown. After the Belfast scrimmage, all the guys were talking about how now we are in the Cony week. They were already thinking, we are coming after Cony. We can draw off that energy.”
Cony has won three consecutive meetings in the series, including a 26-20 7-on-7 decision last season.
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Numbers are down at Maine Central Institute, prompting coach Tom Bertrand to adjust preparations and practice plans.
“We’ve had to dial it back a bit,” said Bertrand. “We’ve had to slow things down a bit, get them acclimated.”
Bertrand said he has about 30 players out this fall. The Huskies typically draw in the 40s, he added.
“Our numbers are down a little bit, yeah,” he said. “Being in the 40s, that’s a good number. We’ve had two years off of actual football. The 7-on-7 was great, but we lost a lot of the elements of football. Sophomores and freshmen then, they’re now seniors and juniors and we’re trying to establish new roles for them, which can take a little time.
“We’ve tried to move quickly through things to get stuff installed, our offense and defense. But we’ve had to slow it down.”
MCI opens the season Sept. 3 at Leavitt in Turner.
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For years, the Bangor-Lawrence rivalry dominated the Pine Tree Conference Class A, with the teams competing in electric atmospheres in front of massive crowds.
The teams were regular participants in Class A state title games, as well.
Between the 2006 and 2012 seasons, either Lawrence or Bangor represented the PTC in six of seven Class A state championship games.
In 2013, the rivals were separated when Lawrence moved to Class B while Bangor remained in A.
Since then, however, the teams have tried to play each other in some capacity.
Nokomis football coach Jake Rogers holds up a sheet of plays while talking to his team during a preseason scrimmage against Winthrop/Monmouth/Hall-Dale on Monday in Winthrop. Andy Molloy/Kennebec Journal
“We really like that tradition,” Lawrence coach John Hersom said. “We always try to play Bangor, whether it’s in the preseason or regular season. We try to keep that going.”
The teams met Saturday in a preseason scrimmage.
“Bangor was willing to do anything, which was great,” Hersom said. “We settled on a format and it was an even scrimmage. We definitely got what we wanted out of it.”
Lawrence will play at Bonny Eagle in a preseason game at 6 p.m., Thursday. The Bulldogs will host Mt. Blue in the season opener Sept. 3.
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Nokomis is changing up its offense after operating primarily out of the Wing-T, which utilizes three running backs, often with one in motion.
“We’ve gone full shotgun now,” Nokomis coach Jake Rogers said. “We are running the pistol, a lot of just one-back sets. It’s a whole new offense this year. During COVID, I knew what we had coming up and knew we had to make a change. We have a lot of skill players who are really tall, 6-foot-7, 6-foot-4. We don’t have those little tailbacks like we’ve had in the past. We had to adjust to the skill that we have.”
Junior Grady Hartsgrove will start at quarterback.
“The QB is running the show,” Rogers said. “He has to make quick decisions. He likes what we’re doing. We’re not going to try and push the ball downfield. Everything is inside 10 yards, for our primary routes.”
Rogers added that his numbers have dropped from 45 on the first day of practice to around 30. Nokomis dressed just two seniors — OL/LB Ryan McAtee and RB/LB AJ Leali — at the scrimmage Monday at Winthrop/Monmouth/Hall-Dale.
“We’re going to be leaning on those two a lot,” Rogers said.
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