When preseason practice begins in a little over a week, the Cape Elizabeth High football team will focus on dethroning Campbell Conference adversary Mountain Valley.

On Saturday, however, the boys had their sights set on a different rival, one they’d never beaten.

The Cape girls soccer team.

After 6.2 hilly miles on a hot, sunny and nearly breezeless morning, a group of about 30 football players celebrated as they crossed the Beach to Beacon finish line in an hour and 20 minutes. Yes, they’d finished the race. They’d also vanquished their fairer foe.

“We beat girls soccer,” said soon-to-be senior James Martin, a center and this year’s coordinator of the team’s annual preseason run. “That’s the best part. It’s the first time ever.”

The football team has been running the race since 2004 as a team-building exercise. The players set a pace that keeps them together. Only one player had to stop off in the medical tent at the finish, and he ended up being just fine.

“All the skill players are definitely in better shape than the linemen, but we get through it as a team,” said Lucas Morin, a rising senior who plays tackle on both sides of the ball.

The run falls during coach Aaron Filieo’s two-week “hands-off” period, so it is a product of the players.

“It’s a good team chemistry builder,” Martin said. “It gets us going. We’ve got two weeks from (Aug. 3) until preseason. This was a big step towards the championship.”

A Class B state championship, that is. Last season, the Capers fell short to Mountain Valley – the eventual state champ – in the Western Maine regional final game in Rumford. In fact, the Falcons have won the past three Western Maine crowns, defeating Cape each time.

“The Rivals,” a documentary chronicling the formation of the Capers-Falcons rivalry, premiered earlier this summer, serving as an offseason reminder for what awaited in the fall.

Incoming junior Kyle Danielson watched his older brother Adam play a main role in the film, which covered the 2007 season.

“The movie wasn’t really about football,” Kyle Danielson said. “It was about the lives of the kids, how you can compare them off the football field and they’re so similar. How people live such different lives, but we all connect.”

Kyle Danielson also has a special connection with Ed Muge, the Beach to Beacon champion the past two years. The Danielson family has served as Muge’s host family for both his wins, so Kyle has shared meals with Muge and learned about his farm in Kenya where he’ll send his prize money.

“I’m really happy that he won again this year,” Kyle Danielson said. “He’s a great guy.”

Members of the Cape Elizabeth High football team cheer as the cross the finish line during Saturday’s Beach to Beacon.
Staff photo by Tom Minervino

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