Defending champion Marshwood High is staying in Class B football after all.
The Maine Principals’ Association classification committee changed the enrollment breaks for football at its meeting Monday.
In late January, the Class A cutoff was set at 780 students by the MPA football committee. That resulted in Marshwood, Gorham, Noble and Skowhegan moving up from Class B to form an 18-team Class A.
But the classification committee, with a focus on breaking the four divisions as evenly as possible, decided to make Class A enrollment 800 or greater. That put Marshwood and Skowhegan back in Class B. Gorham and Noble will remain in what is anticipated to be a 16-team Class A, assuming Cheverus continues to petition to play in the large-school division.
“Basically we just wanted to balance it to keep the number of teams in each class as balanced as possible,” said Bunky Dow, chair of the classification committee and the athletic director at Mount Desert Island.
The complete classification proposals for all sports will be sent to schools for review. Schools will have two weeks to make any appeals before the March 26 interscholastic management meeting.
Once approved by the management committee, all classification proposals will go before the full MPA membership April 25 for final ratification.
“We know classification can’t fix all the problems. We need everyone to play a role in that,” said Mike Bisson, the MPA’s liaison to the classification committee. “Ideally some of those stronger B schools would be ready to take on the stronger Class A programs. We’ve had those discussions, that for the good of football they would be willing to play one of those stronger teams.”
The classification committee didn’t make any changes to the proposed 10-team, eight-man football division.
“We left that alone,” Dow said. “Those 10 teams seem to be working well together to set their schedules.”
The 11-man football classes will continue to be divided into North and South regions.
Class B (enrollment 580-799) will have eight teams in each division. Skowhegan will return to Class B North, Marshwood to Class B South and Gardiner will be in Class B South.
Class C (420-579) will have nine teams in each region. Fryeburg Academy, moved up to B in the football committee proposal, returns to C South. Medomak Valley will shift to the South. Defending Class D champion Wells and Poland, another former Class D school, will be in C South.
Class D (419 or fewer) will have eight teams in the South and nine in the North. Camden Hills, a Class B school by enrollment, has asked to play in D South and be ineligible for playoffs.
CAPE ELIZABETH’S school board is expected to approve Sean Green as the second varsity football coach in the program’s history at its scheduled meeting Tuesday.
Green, 27, was selected to replace Aaron Filieo, who resigned in December to take over at South Portland. Filieo’s 15-year tenure included playoff teams the past 13 seasons and two trips to the state final.
“I have so much respect for Coach Aaron Filieo,” Green said. “I’m not here to replace Coach Filieo. I’m here to be Coach Green and to do my best to take the program to the next level.”
Green said being a high school head coach has been a “lifelong dream,” but he had been picky about applying for job openings.
Last fall he coached the Portland Youth Football middle school team to an 8-2 record. A graduate of Littleton, Massachusetts, High, Green began coaching at the middle school level as a high school senior.
He was part of the Littleton High staff from 2010-14, the last two years as co-offensive coordinator. Littleton’s 2013 team averaged over 41 points, went 13-0 and won the Massachusetts Division 6 Super Bowl.
IT’S OFFICIAL. Portland and Deering high schools will continue to have separate football programs. That decision was made last week.
At a meeting in January, several parents pushed for merging Portland and Deering into a co-operative team, citing small high school roster sizes and decreased participation in youth tackle football.
“We do recognize there is work to be done at the middle (school) level, to be able to sustain two programs long-term,” said Deering Athletic Director Melanie Craig. “We have to build up the feeder program. We’ve got to focus our effort on that.”
Starting in April, a six-week flag football program will be offered at each of the city’s three middle schools. Players will practice twice a week and the schools will play games against each other.
“Our goal is to maximize opportunities for kids. This is a first step and we’re focused on the first step,” Craig said.
Deering High has 38 possible returnees.
Jason McLeod, the new Portland coach, said his roster “right now is 36, not including freshmen. For the state game (against Thornton) we suited up 27 kids. Numbers are up.”
McLeod said he hopes middle school tackle football can return to being a school-based program.
“At the end of the day, even if you only have 20 kids on each (middle school) team, now we have 60 kids playing and the opportunities for playing time are that much greater,” McLeod said.
TYLER BRIDGE, the Fitzpatrick Trophy winner and Maine Sunday Telegram Player of the Year, is still undecided on where he will attend college and play football.
A standout running back/defensive back at Wells, Bridge is waiting to make a visit to the University of Maine before deciding, according to Warriors Coach Tim Roche. Bridge was supposed to visit UMaine the last weekend of February but instead played in the Class B South basketball final. Roche said Bridge also is considering Colby College and Bentley University.
WESTBROOK IS IN the process of replacing former Coach Jeff Guerette. The Blue Blazes’ coach since 2008, Guerette resigned in December.
Athletic Director Blair Marelli said last week interviews should start soon and he hopes to have a hire by the end of March.
Steve Craig can be reached at 791-6413 or:
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