BRUNSWICK

Boys soccer players Ryan Olson and Bailey Jones had smiles on their faces when they began a five-minute endurance run, with the goal to run as many lengths of a 50-yard area as possible.

Nearly halfway through, the smiles were gone as the difficulty of running at a constant pace began to wear on the Brunswick High School duo.

Monday began the 2014/15 high school sports season, with athletes throughout Maine heading back to the field, gridiron, pavement or golf course, with action set to begin soon in football, boys and girls soccer, field hockey, golf and cross country. However, for now coaches are working on longevity, looking to see who came into practice physically ready and who might have taken the summer off.

First-year Mt. Ararat field hockey coach Krista Chase has seen her athletes come in ready to go.

“It is going great. The girls are really willing to work hard, and that’s what is what I have asked them to do,” said Chase. “They are taking in everything that I say, with us working hard on our fundamentals in the morning and playing in the evenings. This is a group of ‘worker-bees’ that are kind and a great group to coach.

“I have really high expectations, and I always have in my 13 years of coaching, and conditioning is the one thing that I ask the girls to do over the summer. They did a fairly good job of that, but there is a long way to go.

At Crimmins Field, Brunswick boys soccer coach Mark Roma is running his team through two-adays, stressing physical fitness.

“I stress during the summer for them to have a fitness program, and I hand out a fitness schedule over those last two weeks that is realistic,” said Roma. “It is paying dividends, with no injuries so far. We had some pulls and strains last year, and we haven’t seen that.”

Weather cooperates

The past couple seasons, athletes were faced with high temperatures and uncomfortable humidity.

So far this week, temperatures and humidity have cooperated, allowing coaches to work on more things.

“We can really push ourselves, challenge ourselves with the running and sprinting,” said Chase. “We can push ourselves that much more when we are not worried about overheating.

“I always worry about injuries. We have a really young group. Coach (Kelly) LaFountain graduated 10 seniors, most of whom were starters, and most of my group is sophomores that have had limited time at the varsity level. I have asked them to pace themselves, and we are working on confidence. That will come.”

Roma’s teams the past two years have been plagued by practice injuries. So far, Roma is pleased to report no injuries.

“We can push the fitness more when the temperatures are like this,” said the Brunswick coach. “We set it up to have an early session to avoid the heat, and that aids the recovery leading into the afternoon session. Heat exhaustion is real and scary, so it is nice to have days like this where the heat isn’t really a factor.”