A face in the crowd caught Lou Lampron's eye. So did another and another. Familiar faces, but faces he didn't usually see at a middle school basketball tournament late in March. "I knew something was up," said Lampron, who was becoming more uncomfortable by the minute. "I didn't know exactly what."He was about to be hit with more affection and appreciation than he wanted to handle last Friday night.Later he would say he didn't see it coming. He had been too busy making sure the basketball tournament he started 20 years ago would complete its 11-day run without too many glitches.
The Westbrook Soccer League is hosting a state-sanctioned poker tournament this Saturday at the Stockhouse Restaurant and Sports Pub.
The tournament begins at 4p, but you can register as early as 2p. There will be a 100-player cap, and the buy-in to participate is $60. Seventy-five percent of the net proceeds go to the eventual winner.
- John C.L. Morgan
Full disclosure: I serve on the Westbrook Soccer League Board of Directors.
Westbrook High has hired new varsity baseball and softball coaches. Greg Souza, a former assistant, is the new Blue Blazes' baseball coach, and Dee (Regan) Allen will coach softball. Allen has coached Portland for the last three seasons. Their nominations were approved Wednesday night by the Westbrook School Committee.
The third time's the charm for a Westbook woman, who has finally realized her
dream of swimming across the English Channel. Pat Gallant-Charette, 60,
succeeded today on her third attempt to swim the 20-mile distance. According an
entry posted at 3:14 p.m. today on her blog, www.patgalant.blogspot.com/,
Gallant-Charette completed the swim after battling strong currents at the end.
"SHE DID IT!, OMG, she did it!" the entry reads.
Pat Gallant-Charette wants to swim across the English Channel in August. On top
of her job as a nurse, the 60-year-old grandmother from Westbrook, Maine,
follows a rigorous training schedule that includes one- to 10-hour swims along
the crashing waves of the cold ocean shore. Gallant-Charette almost crossed the
Channel once before, but currents kept her at bay just a mile and a half from
the finish. This time, she's convinced she'll make it.
"It's my alma mater," said [Chris] Aube. "That was pretty much the selling factor. It was a tough decision. I think I established a pretty good program at Gray-New Gloucester. I told the girls that this was the only position that I'd consider. It's exciting to be going home, but it was also a tough decision to leave." Aube coached the Patriots for four season, making the playoffs every year. He went 44-30 in the regular season and posted double-digit wins each year.
Scott Heath of Westbrook received good news Wednesday while resting his left arm after experiencing pain while throwing a pitch in the second inning Tuesday against Cheverus. Heath was named the Maine Gatorade high school baseball player of the year after going 5-0 in the regular season with a 0.00 earned-run average. Heath has 41 strikeouts in 32 innings and batted .390 with 18 RBI. The Blue Blazes finished with a 14-2 record after a 6-2 loss to the Stags and will enter the Western Class A playoffs as the No. 2 seed.
Bill Folsom, the former Westbrook High basketball coach, was always impeccably dressed with his navy blue sports jacket, powder blue and white striped tie, perfectly creased slacks and polished loafers. His teams reflected his sartorial style. The Blue Blazes may have been the first high school team in the state to wear warmup jackets and pants. The players wore knee-length socks, which some teams wore in those days. The Blazes always looked sharp in pregame drills and it carried over to the game. Folsom wanted his teams, as his son, Mark, said, "to be top shelf" in their appearance and their play. Folsom, one of the top coaches in Maine history, died Sunday at 83 from the effects of a stroke in North Fort Myers, Fla., where he lived for 23 years.
From the moment Lauren Sawyer first picked up a lacrosse stick, she knew she found her athletic calling. "I just felt comfortable from the minute I tried it," she said, of her freshman year at Westbrook High. Eight years later, it's obvious that Sawyer was meant to play lacrosse. A senior at Keene (N.H.) State, she will lead the second-ranked Owls into the Little East Conference semifinals today against the University of Southern Maine. Sawyer is the school's all-time leading scorer, with 102 goals and a record 193 assists, giving her a total of 295 points.
The Blue Blazes have seven returning starters from a team that was Western Class A runner-up. The team is led by last season's Telegram League MVP, Scott Heath, a pitcher-outfielder, and all-league second baseman Zach Collett. If Sean Murphy's right shoulder is healthy, the team will have a very deep pitching staff. Murphy and Matt Weimer, both right-handers, are capable of beating any team. Murphy also was the second-team DH on the league's all-star team.
Bri Fecteau, the pride of Westbrook High girls' basketball some 15 years ago, finished up her rookie season as head coach at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., by winning the Empire 8 championship before losing to Colby in the NCAA Division III regional tournament, 58-48. Stevens ended the season with a 19-9 record. Fecteau starred at Bentley before serving seven years as an assistant at Harvard.
Back in the summer of 2005, Zach Collett and Joey Royer were two of the key players in the Westbrook all-stars run to the Little League World Series. Next fall they'll be reunited on the baseball diamond. Collett, a senior infielder at Westbrook High, and Royer, a senior left-handed pitcher for Cheverus, have signed letters of intent to play baseball at the University of New Haven, a Division II program in the Northeast-10 Conference with Division I dreams.
[Art] Dyer graduated from Windham High School in 1959 having lettered in baseball and basketball all four years. He participated in those same sports while attending Gorham State, where he graduated in 1964. At Medomak Valley his teams compiled a record of 184-44, making the Class B tournament every year, winning the Western Maine title four times and the state title twice. In 1980 he accepted a position at Westbrook High School, where his teams won 152 games, making it to the Western Maine Final four times and won the state Class A championship in 1984. He was an assistant coach at Division I Fairfield University in Connecticut from 1991 to 1998, when he retired.
[Anthony] D'Alfonso flew to Yuma, Ariz., for a tryout with an independent league team located near the Mexican border. He waited in a hotel room for two days and was close to returning home to Westbrook when the Yuma Scorpions of the Golden Baseball League called to offer him a tryout. They'd make time during batting practice before that night's game. It was all he needed. D'Alfonso hit several pitches out of the park and was to signed a contract within an hour. He went 4 for 4 Tuesday night in his third appearance at first base.
Fifty-nine-year-old Pat Charette-Gallant swam from Tarifa, Spain to the coast of Morocco on June 16 in 3:28, thus becoming the fastest American woman to swim the Strait of Gibraltar.
A slideshow depicting Charette-Gallant's feat can be seen here, and a video of the world record-holder (Australian Penny Palfrey) swimming alongside pilot whales can be seen here.
(Update: The PPH has published a profile of Charette-Gallant)
In the wake of the Westbrook High School baseball team's loss in the Western Class A finals earlier this week, Press Herald sports columnist Steve Solloway gives an update on the whereabouts of the players who played on the city's Little League World Series team in 2005:
Six of the 12 are on the Westbrook varsity. Zach and Jake Gardiner played shortstop and third base Tuesday night. Zach Collett was at second and Tom Lemay was catching. Sean Murphy pitched this season until a sore shoulder shut him down. Mitchell Chipman has a role, if not a steady position.
Understand that in his youth, [former Westbrook basketball standout Matt] Donahue could find pickup games in Westbrook, where he lived, anytime he wanted. That's not always true today, in Westbrook, Portland or anywhere. "It was survival of the fittest. You didn't leave until you lost." Donahue had the rep of a pure shooter. That was before he scored 57 points against Deering High one night in a crowded gym. That was before there was a 3-point line. Donahue set the benchmark that night. "From the beginning, Keegan [Hyland] wanted to play college basketball at the highest level," said Donahue. "Duke might have been the school he first mentioned. He asked me what he needed to do.
Hyland is a standout from SoPo who recently announced his acceptance of a scholarship to Gonzaga, a perennial participant in March Madness.
I think it is clear we need to continue to prove quality experiences to all of our students in both athletics and activities with less and less resources. I am a firm believer that coaching is teaching and athletics just uses the courts and playing fields as its classroom. I am extremely fortunate that the Westbrook community believes this and continues to support these co-curricular events for our kids. The athletic administrators across the state will continue to look for ways to save our communities tax dollars while still producing a quality experience for students.
Kevin Cooper of Bonny Eagle of Standish will coach the West squad, assisted by Matt Perkins of Windham, John Suttie of Bony Eagle, Steve Stinson of South Portland, Scott Descoteaux of Biddeford, John Caverly of Marshwood of Eliot, Brad Bishop of Livermore Falls, Bangor native Jeff Guerrette of Westbrook and Aaron Fileo of Cape Elizabeth.
[Boston Red Sox pitcher John] Lackey will find out there is a baseball tradition in his new, extended family. Among [Lackey's wife] Krista's cousins are Christian Hamilton, who plays for the University of Southern Maine, and Sean Murphy, a Westbrook High standout who has already given St. John's University a verbal commitment to play baseball there.
