Jul. 22—When Maine’s college football coaches gathered Monday at their annual kickoff luncheon, University of New England Coach Mike Lichten had one statistic that topped all of his peers.
The Nor’easters have 40 seniors returning from the seven-year program’s first winning season with an eye on climbing higher after they finished 6-4 overall, 2-3 in the Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) in 2023.
“That’s the hope. That’s the expectation,” Lichten said. “The (offensive) line is the only real position without a tremendous amount of experience right now. But staying healthy, getting that group in the right direction, and then being able to gel and buy in as a team even more than we have to take the next part in that process of the cultural cohesiveness.”
But UNE does have two large holes on its coaching staff with the season opener at Coast Guard on Sept. 7 just 46 days away. Kenny Treschitta, the only defensive coordinator the program has had, left in June to take the head coaching job at another start-up program, Shreiner University in Kerrville, Texas, which is scheduled to begin play in 2026.
“We were together 10 years. He was with me for a spell at Becker College,” Lichten said. “And then he was here from day one with me at UNE. It’s one thing to lose a coach in January and we lost him in June. But you know what? He had a great opportunity. It is a great opportunity. He’ll have incredible success there because he works so hard and he has a blueprint. He’ll probably do it better than we did the first time around.”
Also gone from the UNE staff is offensive line coach Eric Ruest who was one of the original Nor’easter players and had been on the coaching staff the past four seasons. Ruest took the offensive coordinator job at Rochester, which will host UNE in a non-conference game Sept. 28.
“Eric was one of our first-ever recruits. Everything we’ve done, he’s been a part of,” Lichten said.
Both positions are currently vacant. Lichten expects them to be filled soon, he said.
Monday’s luncheon was sponsored by the Howard Vandersea Maine Chapter of the National Football Foundation and held at Bowdoin College. Each college program in Maine, along with Bridgton Academy, was represented with the coaches giving a quick outlook on the season ahead and often highlighting their in-state talent.
UNE had nine players from Maine on its 2023 roster. That number will almost double with seven incoming freshmen from Maine, including Yarmouth running back Michael McGonagle who became the first eight-man football player to be a Fitzpatrick Trophy finalist after rushing for over 2,000 yards as both a junior and senior. UNE also nabbed five players who this past Saturday played in the Maine Shrine Lobster Bowl Classic all-star football game: tight end/back Maddox Demers of Leavitt, defensive end Dylan Lowe of Camden Hills, offensive lineman Owen Bourque of Kennebunk, defensive back Hunter Temple of Portland, and linebacker Rufus MacVane of Yarmouth, who replaced McGonagle on the West roster because McGonagle is recovering from knee surgery.
McGonagle and MacVane will be joining former Yarmouth teammate Spencer Labrecque, a 6-foot-2, 265-pound nose guard who was named the 2023 CCC Defensive Rookie of the Year despite missing five games because of a herniated disc in his back. Labrecque did play in four of the five CCC games.
“When you watch (Labrecque) play and you watch how he affects the game, it’s different,” Lichten said.
Maine Maritime Coach Calvin Powell was clearly happy he could stand in front of his peers on Monday and talk in definitive terms about his program, which will play a five-game combination varsity and junior varsity schedule this fall before jumping fully into varsity status in 2025 as a member of the CCC.
Maine Maritime put its football program on indefinite suspension in August of 2020 primarily because of the school’s financial issues. Fundraising began almost immediately and the program was reinstated in January of 2023 and Powell was hired in March of 2023.
“This year I can tell you that we’ve been able to expand our staff and we’ll be practicing before the first day of school,” Powell said. “We have 30 new students joining our program, 29 from the high school ranks, from six states.”
Maine Martime has seven incoming players who competed in the Lobster Bowl coming to the Castine campus, “as opposed to last year having none. That’s a real landmark for us,” Powell said.
The seven Lobster Bowl veterans are led by two-time Varsity Maine all-state lineman Holden Shaw of Oxford Hills and 2023 Varsity Maine all-state receiver Will Keach of Leavitt. The other Lobster Bowl alums are linemen Alex Bartlett (Oceanside), Warren Allen (Mt. Blue) and Derrick Webber (Old Orchard Beach), Medomak Valley running back Aaron Reed, and Stearns receiver Caden Raymond.
Maine Maritime will host Hartwick on Sept. 7 for its first varsity game since 2019 and will play varsity games at Nichols College, Sept. 14, and at Newport News (Virginia) Apprentice School, Oct. 12. Its JV games will be at UNE, Oct. 6, and at home against Husson on Oct. 20. In 2023, Maine Maritime played one JV game, losing to UNE’s sub-varsity, 61-0. Over its final four varsity seasons, Maine Maritime was 2-37 and has lost 22 straight games. Its last win was Oct. 14, 2017, against Coast Guard.
FOUR OF HUSSON’S FIVE CAPTAINS are from Maine high schools: fifth-year defensive lineman James Boyd of Nokomis, tight end Cullen Casey of Marshwood, CJ Nicely of Noble, and junior quarterback Max Clark of Bangor, who is the son…
Portland Press Herald, Maine
