Mount View athletic director Chris Moreau said he expects the Mustangs will have a new head coach early next week. Moreau said he has a finalist who cannot be named until a meeting Monday with RSU 3 Superintendent Paul Austin.
The new coach will replace Haggie Pratt, who left Mount View early this summer to accept a position as associate head coach on Dan O’Connell’s staff at John Bapst High School in Bangor. Pratt was head coach at Mount View for four seasons. In 2015, he led the Mustangs to a 7-3 record and the team’s best season, reaching the Little Ten Conference semifinals. Last season, Mount View went 5-4, enjoying back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in the program’s decade-long history. With the LTC cutting the number of playoff spots from six to four last season, the Mustangs just missed a second straight postseason appearance.
Prior to coaching at Mount View, Pratt coached at Nokomis and Dexter.
“It’s a bummer. I’ve known coach Pratt for quite a few years,” Moreau said. “But we have a great group of kids. We lost some good players to graduation, but the future long term is looking very good for Mount View football.”
Despite the tight window in which to interview candidates,
“It didn’t give us a lot of time, but I’m very pleased with the quality of candidates we had,” Moreau said.
• • •
Skowhegan also is looking for a new head coach, with former coach Matt Friedman moving on to coach wide receivers at Husson University.
“It’s always been a dream of mine to coach in college. It was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up. It’s going to be hard to leave Skowhegan,” Friedman, who coached the Indians for five seasons, said last week at Maine Shrine Lobster Bowl media day. Friedman was an assistant coach with the East squad.
Skowhegan athletic director Jon Christopher said he hopes later this week to name an in-house candidate as interim head coach for the 2017 season. Once the season is complete, Skowhegan will open the head coach job up to a wider search, Christopher said.
“We were concerned there’s not enough time to do a search, so we’re going in-house,” Christopher said.
Friedman coached Skowhegan to the playoffs three times, reaching the regional semifinals twice. Prior to coaching Skowhegan, Friedman was head coach at Madison, helping the Bulldogs become a cooperative program with Carrabec.
• • •
A pair of former central Maine high school football standouts will be captains for Husson this fall. Tight end DJ Allen, a Skowhegan graduate, and defensive end Luke Washburn, an Oak Hill graduate, join running back John Smith as the Eagles’ captains this season.
The Gaziano Award winner as the top defensive lineman in the state as a senior at Oak Hill, Washburn was the Eastern Collegiate Football Conference Defensive Player of the Year last season. He had 56 tackles and 12 sacks, as well as 18.5 tackles for a loss.
An all-ECFC first team selection last season, Allen had 25 catches for 225 yards and a pair of touchdowns. As a blocker, Allen helped the Eagles average 243.8 yards per game on the ground, and helped pave the way for Smith to run for 1,822 yards in 11 games.
The defending ECFC champion, Husson opens the season Sept. 2 at home against Union College in a non-conference game.
• • •
Saturday’s Maine Shrine Lobster Bowl, a 55-18 win for the West, was the most lopsided Lobster Bowl since the East’s 55-8 win in 2003, and the third-most lopsided game in the series 28 year history.
The West set a team record for most points, beating the total set last season in a 58-52 East victory. The West missed a field goal late in the fourth quarter that would have tied the record for most points in a game, set by the East last year.
With three defensive touchdowns scored, two interception returns and a fumble recovery, the game set a new mark for defensive touchdowns in a game. The previous record was two, in Lobster Bowl 4, in 1993.
With his 76-yard touchdown catch on a twice-tipped pass, Mount View’s Colby Furrow had the second-longest touchdown reception in Lobster Bowl history, just two yards shorter than Mike Joyce of Deering’s 78-yard touchdown catch in Lobster Bowl 16, in 2005. Skowhegan’s Garrett McSweeney threw the pass to Furrow.
• • •
A handful of the top offensive coaches in the state are running a skills camp at Cony High School in Augusta this week. According to Cony head coach B.L. Lippert, 81 players from around Maine are taking part in the camp, which runs through Thursday.
Joining Lippert as instructors are Kevin Cooper of Bonny Eagle, Mike Hathaway of Leavitt and Jordan Hersom of Gardiner.
• • •
We’re just under a month from the start of the football season. Preseason practices begin on Aug. 14, with scrimmages allowed beginning Aug. 19. Week one of the regular season begins with games on Friday, Sept. 1.
The state championship games will be Nov. 17-18. The Class C game is Nov. 17 at the University of Maine in Orono. Classes A, B, and D will play state championship games on Saturday, Nov. 18 at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland.
Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242
tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @TLazarczykMTM
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.