Mt. Abram’s Payton Mitchell, left, and Monmouth’s Patrick Strout battle for the ball Saturday afternoon at Kents Hill School in Readfield. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal
The scuttlebutt is that Mt. Abram boys soccer coach Darren Allen is still in awe — and quite proud — that his Roadrunners duplicated another double-digit-win season despite the departure of a handful of talented seniors.
“After what we lost from last year, I mean there were comments at a coach’s meeting last year (like): ‘Well, Darren you better be perfect this year because this year is your only chance … this is your only chance to go far because after you lose those seniors, you don’t have a chance’ — and that rang with me a lot over the offseason.”
Allen said he didn’t change anything in the team’s training during this past summer to compensate for those departing seniors — including Cam Walters, Ian Allen, Trevor Phelps, Caleb Thibodeau and Wyatt Sieminski — who helped steer Mt. Abram to the Class C South regional final last year.
“We actually played less over the summer with the boys,” Allen said. “We went once a week and the only thing I asked for over the summer is (attending) the (Maine Maritime Academy Soccer Camp), which I recommend highly, and then (participate) in our (Western Mountain 7v7 Soccer Classic), and that’s all we did.”
The Roadrunners not only produced a 13-1 regular season but are back near the top of C South, as the region’s No. 2 seed. Before the regional playoffs begin, however, Mt. Abram gets a third contest against Monmouth Academy — the Roadrunners won the first two — in the Mountain Valley Conference championship game Saturday evening.
“I have a great group of kids,” Allen said. “They listen; they are impressionable. … I have a great staff. I lost an assistant this year, and that really hurt because he is a great guy. Jimmy Danala left the coaching staff to coach at the new middle school. So that was a big loss … because we work really well together, but coach Glenn Mirlocca and myself and coach Kawika Thompson, a strength-and-conditioning guy, work really hard for this group.
“It hasn’t been easy. I tell the boys it is going to be different every year. This year has been an awesome surprise. It really has.”
Allen was faced with replacing the entire defense and a goalkeeper from a team that went 14-1-2 in its run to the regional final. Yet this year’s team only gave up four goals and walked off with 11 shutout victories in 14 games.
“The year we have, only let up four goals and we have 11 shutouts,” Allen said. “I didn’t think that was possible. You know, anything is possible. It’s been great so far, and you know the regular season is over and the new season starts, but we’ve got to change our focus and get ready for Saturday night now.”
Allen said the entire team has come through for themselves, with a lot of help from Morgan Thibodeau Jr. on offense.
“Morgan Thibodeau — the last two and half weeks — has absolutely been on a tear,” Allen said. “He’s got 23 goals. He’s got 14 or 15 assists. You know he is the catalyst — offensively — but he is the team leader.”
For Thibodeau, all the newbies that joined the team made a huge difference this season.
“We got a lot of good replacements from last year (and) another solid defensive line,” Thibodeau said. “There are a couple of new guys who have done really well. We have two brand-new keepers and they are doing really well. To be honest, it has been a whole team effort.
“We play for each other each and every game. We play for our school, our community. We work well together. We are all amazing friends. We have known each other a long time and we all play club ball together for a long time.”
Allen and Thibodeau obviously agree that soccer, after all, is a team sport.
“It is just not one guy,” Allen said. “The entire defense and the goalkeeping corps has been phenomenal. Everybody has done their part. They have accepted their role and done their part.
“Morgan has stepped his game up and Kaden Pillsbury, you know, he is very quiet — he has almost 20 assists. I don’t know of anybody who has 20 assists. I’ve got to get the exact number, but he’s up there and he is a very skilled player in that midfield. And Morgan and he are together in the midfield, and those two together, it’s lights out. They are just so persistent. Their work rate is really high.”
Trey Reed and Logan Dube are two goalies who have helped with those 11 shutouts.
“They platoon a half each game,” Allen said. “The back four (on defense) have been excellent. Tucker Plouffe is back there. He didn’t play last year.
“I have four kids in that back line and goalkeeping who didn’t play last year. They weren’t even on the team. They were on the golf team. Our goalkeepers haven’t played goalkeeper since middle school. Those guys are all new. They are brand-new to the system. So we worked a lot with them — the mental part and the physical part.”
Allen said his Roadrunners got sideswiped with a huge wake-up call from Lisbon two games into the regular season.
“I mean, we got shut out,” Allen said. “We scored 91 goals (this season). We got shut out at Lisbon and that was a wake-up call. We outplayed Lisbon. They only had three shots. We had 14, but they put two (in) and we didn’t put any in.
“Right then and there, I was like ‘wow.’ We need to take a step back and we need to go back to basics and do more of the mental stuff because with this group, it is all mental. They can do it. They need the confidence to know they can do it. It just woke us up. That was the game.”
Besides that rousing wake-up call for the team, Payton Mitchell, a junior central defensive midfielder, believes the Roadrunners’ swift improvement and team chemistry during the season is what led to their prosperity and now another potential playoff run.
“We work really well with each other, not even on the soccer field, (but) outside of school we are all friends with each other. But on the soccer field, we are always talking and working hard,” Mitchell said. “A lot of people didn’t think we were going to be as good as we were this year because we lost a lot of really good seniors.
“But this team really worked hard in the preseason and we kept getting better and better and it was a really big accomplishment to go 13-1 this year.”
Indeed it was, even if the Roadrunners themselves weren’t expecting it.
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