Walk up to the Skowhegan field hockey team’s field, and one of the first things you see is the championship placard, one that’s running out of room to list all of the state titles the program has won.
There’s no mistaking the message. At Skowhegan, deep tournament runs are part of the expectations. And last year, the River Hawks — like every other field hockey team in the state — didn’t have that stage to play for.
“Last year was really tough, because we’re always such a competitive team,” junior Eleanor Tibbetts said. “But not to have playoffs and stuff, it almost made us not have something to look forward to, and I feel like that decreased our competitiveness during the season.”
For field hockey, as well as soccer, teams this fall, those aspirations are back. There will again be playoffs and tournaments and championships to shoot for, and for the players and coaches involved, having those familiar goals in place makes for a more rewarding, and fulfilling, feeling as the seasons are set to begin.
“It’s everything,” Skowhegan coach Paula Doughty said. “The kids are much more mentally healthy than they were last year. Last year, they were like zombies. I would talk to them and they had this flat (expression), and I would try to give them hope, and they would look at me like there was no hope.”
There’s hope now, and the River Hawks have been working with that in mind.
“We are so competitive in practice,” junior Samantha Thebarge said. “Last year, it was just kind of like ‘OK, we’re here to play,’ but it wasn’t as intense. This year, we’re practicing every day, we’re doing so much running to get ourselves in shape. I think it’s just going to be a really good year for us.”
Skowhegan field hockey head coach Paula Doughty works her team during an Aug. 25 practice in Skowhegan. Michael G. Seamans/Morning Sentinel
“I feel like last year was a learning year for all of us, and it made us better for this year,” junior Callaway LePage said. “We’ve prepared ourselves, we know what we’re coming in for.”
Don Beckwith’s boys soccer team at Maranacook is another program that has become accustomed to annual championship contention. Like Doughty, Beckwith said it was hard to motivate and inspire players without the goal of winning a title at season’s end.
This season, though, Beckwith said his job has been easier.
“It made a big difference. Huge, huge,” he said. “Kids are showing up because they want to play, too. It’s a whole different look, a whole different feel. It’s really special now. And it’s taught the kids that things can go away. Things that you think are always going to be there can go away.”
Beckwith’s players said there has been more buzz, more energy and more excitement as they’ve approached the season with the traditional goals in place.
“When we started getting into the preseason, I started to feel it. I started to get back into the groove a little bit,” junior center midfielder Jake Nisby said. “There’s a little bit more of a boost in everybody, especially me. Last year, everybody was down, and there wasn’t really any motivation to play. I think this year, that’s improved by so much.”
“It brings it to a whole new level. The intensity’s all there, it’s really exciting,” senior center back Ryan Emerson said. “It was totally game-changing (last year). It felt anticlimactic. It was just odd, it was weird. It’s hard to describe.
“It was nice that we actually got to have a season, because some sports weren’t as fortunate. But it did kind of take the ‘oomph’ out of it, to not be able to do playoffs, because that’s kind of what we build (for) the whole year.”
Some conferences tried to arrange whatever competitions they could at the end of the year. The Monmouth, Hall-Dale and Richmond boys and girls soccer teams, for instance, competed in a one-day tournament they called the “COVID Cup” to determine the informal champion of the RSU2 district.
Monmouth/Winthrop soccer player Lydia Rice maintains her focus on the ball during a practice Tuesday in Monmouth. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
It was fun, the players, said, and better than nothing. But it wasn’t the real thing.
“Last year we had the COVID Cup, but that wasn’t something to look forward to like a state game or playoff games,” said Megan Ham, a senior right forward on the Monmouth/Winthrop girls soccer team. “It makes it a lot more exciting, in that there’s a lot more competition now, because I like to win. I like that competition from other teams that we don’t usually get to play.”
Her teammate, senior stopper Lydia Rice, said she feels rejuvenated going into this fall after what was a season of compromise last year.
“I feel like there’s something we’re actually playing for,” she said. “It was disappointing (last year), thinking ‘We can’t go to states, we can’t play teams we haven’t played before.’ … I’m not going to lie, it did go through my head, ‘There’s nothing to play for, it’s just not as fun.’ But I’m excited for this year.”
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