Even though all eyes were on his star player this year, Mt. Blue coach Fred Conlogue saw a cool and confident Eryn Doiron on the soccer pitch this fall.

“I think she felt more pressure last year,” Conlogue said. “She seemed more relaxed this year.”

Doiron agreed that because she had more skilled teammates this year, she didn’t feel as much pressure to create offensive opportunities as she has in the past. But she also admitted that she wasn’t quite so relaxed when she got within striking distance of the school’s all-time goal-scoring record.

“I’m not going to lie. I did get a little more nervous at the end of the season,” she said.

Doiron tied the record set by Ashli Spear, a 1991 graduate, with a goal against Camden Hills. The butterflies built up over the next couple of days until her next game against Skowhegan. She was awarded a penalty kick in the midst of a scoreless tie, which gave her even more time to think about the short- and long-term implications of the kick.

“That was a little bit nerve-wracking,” she said.

She composed herself and buried the PK. She added another goal to lead the Cougars to a 4-1 win that propelled Mt. Blue into a three-game winning streak heading into the playoffs.

For her efforts, Doiron is the Morning Sentinel Girls Soccer Player of the Year.

Doiron earned Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Player of the Year honors with a career-high 19 goals this season and 50 for her career. She credited her teammates with helping her find room to operate despite being double- and triple-teamed much of the time.

That was particularly important in tight games. The Cougars played in five overtime games and finished 3-1-1 in them, thanks in large part because of the tangibles and intangibles Doiron brought to key situations.

“It started with her leadership,” Conlogue said. “She had a knack of doing whatever we needed whenever we needed it. Time and again, she would score the goal that got us back into it and the team would just take it from there.”

Dorion started playing soccer when she was three years old and was heavily influenced by her older brother, Ike, an accomplished player in his own right at Mt. Blue who now plays for Maine Maritime.

The remarkable skills she has developed were evident any time she had the ball at her feet.

“Most girls go north and south. She’s not afraid to go east and west to go north and south because she knows where the best place to go with the ball,” Conlogue said.

Doiron said Conlogue’s role in making her the player she is can’t be quantified.

“Fred is … I can’t even put into words,” said Doiron, who is still looking for a college where she can study engineering and play soccer. “He teaches you things without you knowing that he’s teaching you things. I’ll be doing something in a game that I haven’t done before and I’ll think, ‘he taught me that and it worked exactly like he taught me.'”

Conlogue and the Cougars made the playoffs all four years of Doiron’s career. They finished 8-7-1 this year and pulled off an upset in the preliminary round over Brewer, winning 2-1 on penalty kicks. Doiron scored the first goal in that contest to give her seven post-season goals in eight career playoff games.

Top-seeded Camden Hills ended the Cougars’ season in the quarterfinals. Doiron was sorry it didn’t last longer, but not because she didn’t have a chance to add to her record. She doesn’t believe it will take as long for someone to come along and break it as it did for her to chase down Spear’s mark. In fact, having done some youth coaching in Farmington in recent years, she hopes to have passed some of her knowledge along to her successor.

“It was nice to break the record and as much as I want it to stay on there forever and a day, I really hope someone breaks it,” she said. “That would make me so proud.”

Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638

rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @RAWmaterial33

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