AUGUSTA — Paul Vachon can’t be there in person right now to watch the Cony Rams play. Rest assured, though, that he’s every bit invested in the team as ever.

The Cony girls basketball team’s former coaching great is still at home as he recovers from heart transplant surgery after suffering a heart attack last June. One thing that’s kept him busy this winter? Following this year’s Rams, who just won the Class A North championship.

“Thank God for streaming because I can still see them even though I can’t be there,” said Vachon, who won seven state titles at Cony from 1985-2008. “I’ve watched them all year long from my lazy chair, and I like them; I like them a lot. They’re some tough kids, and they never quit.”

That’s a sentiment that’s widespread among the many Rams who played before this current Cony group, which faces Brunswick for the Class A title at 1:05 p.m. Saturday in Portland. After a 12-year period that saw the program take a major downturn, the former Rams are jubilant over their team’s return to a state final. 

There was not a bad year for Cony under Vachon, but Cassie Cooper’s days playing for the Rams from 2003-07 were among the program’s finest. The Rams made the Class A title game all four years of her playing career, winning in 2005 and 2007 (also the program’s last Gold Ball victory). 

As Cony kept progressing through this year’s tournament, Cooper began to take notice. Finally, with the Rams back in the regional final for the first time in 11 years, she took her kids — now diehard Cony Rams fans, she says — to see them take on Lawrence last Friday at the Augusta Civic Center.

“When I heard they were going to finals, I did as much as I could to rally the troops and get as many alumni as I could there to support them,” said Cooper, who lives in Standish. “ I just said, ‘guys, we’ve never forgotten what it feels like to play in front of a packed Augusta Civic Center and seeing the color red everywhere,’ and we wanted to give them that same feeling.”

The way the Rams were relentless in grabbing rebounds and going after loose balls and picked one another up, Cooper said, was reminiscent of how her Cony teams played under Vachon. She was also impressed with how a team with a short rotation of just six girls never seemed to slow down.

“I think what I saw in them was a lot of what we were so proud about when I was playing, which was really the celebration of being a true team,” Cooper said. “Having just a small bench is very difficult because they don’t really get the luxury of having a break. That speaks volumes to how well-conditioned and how prepared they are.”

Katie (Rollins) DelSignore played with Cooper on Cony’s 2004 Eastern Maine title-winning team and 2005 state championship team. One of the most legendary players in program history, she was Miss Maine Basketball in 2005 before heading off to play college ball at Harvard.

Now living in Boston, DelSignore hasn’t been able to see Cony in action this year. She still keeps track of her old school’s progress across all sports, and as the Rams kept racking up tournament wins last week, her excitement for her former program kept growing.

“What they’ve done has been very impressive,” DelSignore said. “It’s been a challenging road, and they’ve had to fight very hard to get to the state game, but that says a lot about them as a team. … I have my daughter’s third birthday on Saturday, but if I could, I would be there in Portland cheering for them with all my red on.”

Josie Lee was a member of the 2011-12 Cony team, the last to win a regional title. She always feels a sense of nostalgia this time of year as she thinks back to her own playing days, and seeing the Rams back in a state championship game again has only heightened that feeling.

Lee got a sense of what this Cony team was all about when she battled some of the current players in the program’s alumni game in November. Now a Portland resident, she plans to be in attendance Saturday when the Rams take on Brunswick in her backyard.

“Just playing against them in that alumni game, you could tell they have a lot of really gritty players, which I love to see,” Lee said. “They work really hard, and they all work together. There’s a real sense of grittiness and hustle to them, which I personally love. I’m excited to see that from them on Saturday.”

After Lee graduated in 2013, the Rams would have one more solid season, going 13-7 with a Class A East semifinal appearance in 2013-14. After that, though, the Rams endured six years of darkness as they went 15-93 from 2014-20. The team finished last in Class A North three straight years from 2015-18. 

Some ups and downs, Lee said, are to be expected with any program, and Cony, even with its storied history, is no exception. She fully expected her former team to climb back to prominence again at some point, and she’s not surprised to see the current group accomplish exactly that.

“I know (head coach) John Dennett really well, and he’s just so passionate about the sport and about Cony girls basketball specifically,” Lee said. “I’m not shocked by any means that it’s his team that’s the one that’s turned it around to be the one to get there. Like I said, they have that grit and hustle to them.”

Before Cooper, DelSignore and Lee came Julie Veilleux (1996-2000), who won a Gold Ball in 1998 before going to play at the University of Maine and, eventually, coaching the women’s team at Colby College. Like Lee, she harkens back to her own playing days as she sees the success this year’s Cony team has had.

“It makes me proud,” Veilleux said. “Whenever I see that, the memories come back. As a Cony alum, you take pride in what you built back then and what those memories meant, so any time you see the team has that kind of success, you feel a connection, even though you’re all these years apart. You’re proud of them.”

« Previous

Boys basketball: Decades after coaching Thorndike school to state title, Greg Reid now behind the wheel for the Mustangs

Next »

Varsity Maine basketball, hockey polls – Feb. 29