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The significance truly hit Cole Tanner hours after his Westbrook football team won the Class B state championship.

After beating Cony 40-20 in the state title game Saturday, the Blue Blazes went to Buffalo Wild Wings in South Portland to celebrate. Tanner, a junior, remembered how Westbrook enjoyed a postgame meal at the same restaurant after a big win over Kennebunk six weeks earlier.

“Being there again as a team and seeing how far we had come since that game, it was amazing,” Tanner said. “It was super emotional to be there with all the guys again, and then, on the drive home, I think that’s when it really hit me how crazy it was.”

There were layers to this Westbrook run. What started as a feel-good story of a team that went from 2-6 a year ago to a Class B South hopeful ultimately added many more chapters, the last written on a unforgettable day at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland that ended with the first Gold Ball in program history.

Westbrook entered 2025 nine years removed from its last winning season. The Blue Blazes were fresh off a campaign in which they won their final two games after an 0-6 start. They were 12-39 since 2017, losing at least six games for six consecutive years.

Yet after Westbrook beat Marshwood to open this season, a 25-7 loss to Falmouth in Week 2 affected the Blue Blazes in a way previous defeats hadn’t. Yes, they were frustrated, but they were able to channel that frustration in a positive manner.

“Losing sucks, but we just all came together and said, ‘OK, we just have to regroup, get back to work and clean some stuff up,’” said Sam Johnson, Westbrook’s fourth-year head coach. “There wasn’t this whole sense of doom and gloom.”

From there, each moment got bigger. The 20-0 win over Kennebunk in Week 6 was the Rams’ first league loss in three years. A 27-21 triumph over Cheverus the following week was Westbrook’s first over the Stags since 2005. Then the Blue Blazes earned the No. 1 seed, a first-ever regional title, and to cap it all off, a first Gold Ball.

While the rest of Maine was looking at Westbrook’s season as a storybook run, the Blue Blazes were trying not to see it that way. No, they weren’t oblivious to the context of what it all meant, but were focused on making sure they didn’t get caught up in each moment while pursuing something bigger.

“I’ve been trying to tell the kids, ‘I know this is the biggest thing we’ve ever been a part of, but let’s try to act like it’s not because the time to celebrate and actually reflect is not now,’” Johnson said. “That became harder as it went on, but I have to give the kids credit because they were just locked in and kept their heads down.”

How did they do it? Well, to this Westbrook team, this story was not going to be complete without the ultimate ending — only a Gold Ball would suffice. On Saturday, from seniors Gio Staples, Tony Bongomin and Dimitri Lubin to underclassmen Tanner (two touchdowns) and Lucas Roberson (two interceptions), the Blue Blazes clinched it with a total team victory.

“I had so many people ask me in the playoffs, ‘If you lose this game, is it a wasted season, or are you going to be proud of how far you guys came,’ and, to be honest I thought it would be a waste,” Tanner said. “I don’t take losing well — I don’t accept it as part of what Westbrook wants to be — so to put the cherry on top, I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Now the Blue Blazes can reflect. They can reflect on how they lifted their football program from afterthoughts to champions. They can also reflect on what it all means to the Westbrook community, one that filled every seat on the home side at Fitzpatrick Stadium after showing out with a standing-room-only crowd in the regional final against Kennebunk. 

Still, this is by no means the end for the Blue Blazes, many of whom were already talking about returning to this stage as they celebrated Saturday. With one story complete, a group of underclassmen that includes Tanner, Roberson, Camillo Jones, Andre Hicks, Peter Wescott and Hunter Hall hopes to write another.

“Being the QB next season, I want to bring us back to Fitzy to do it again,” Hall said. “We want to do this again for everyone and show that Westbrook is a good program and that we’re not ‘Dirty Brook’ — we know how to play football.”