The Scarborough boys’ soccer team is over it – “it” being a 2-1 loss last week to Gorham.

Last Thursday at Scarborough, the Rams handed the Red Storm their first loss in more than two years. While some could interpret it as the end of an era, Scarborough Coach Mark Diaz sees it as an opportunity to forge ahead.

“I don’t have a lot of guys back from last year’s team, so I guess it does take some pressure off,” Diaz said. “There wasn’t a lot of pressure on me, but maybe more so on my players. We’re going to focus more on what we need to work on and what we need to do. People keep talking about it but we’re going to move on.”

A quick refresher: Scarborough has played in four of the past five Class A championship games and entered the season with a 40-game unbeaten streak.

Scarborough’s last loss came Oct. 23, 2007, a 2-1 loss on penalty kicks to Greely in a Western Class A semifinal.

The Red Storm were hit by graduation this past spring, but Diaz maintains perspective on the growth of this year’s team.

“I kind of saw this coming, but I think this is going to be a positive for us,” Diaz said.

“Better now than late October, because you really don’t want to lose a game then. Against Gorham, a couple of things happened that haven’t happened in a while. We were down by a goal, and then down by two goals, and that hasn’t happened in a long time. It’s more about mental toughness and how we responded.”

In the days after the loss, Diaz took the Red Storm back to the fundamental part of the game.

“We’re starting over,” Diaz said.

“We’re building up. It’s not an excuse, but we’ve had some injuries affect us, and when you talk about winning 40 straight, we didn’t have any injuries and things were going our way. It’s not an excuse and Gorham deserved the win, but these are things we haven’t faced.”

Despite the loss, Scarborough (5-1) remained atop the Heal points before Tuesday night’s 2-0 win at Westbrook, and was one of the nine Western Class A teams with one loss.

Cape Elizabeth, which plays a Western Maine Conference schedule during the regular season, is 5-0 going into Thursday’s game against Yarmouth (also 5-0) at Hannaford Field in Cape Elizabeth.

“I think it’s good,” Diaz said of the early-season logjam. “I said in the preseason that I didn’t think there’d be anyone undefeated. We’re seeing a lot of parity, and every night you’ve got to show up or anyone can win that game. Or anyone can lose that game.”

 

MARANACOOK ENTERED Tuesday night’s game at Mt. View with a 5-0-1 record and atop the Western Class B Heal standings.

Maranacook and Yarmouth are 1-2 in the standings, and the only undefeated teams in the region, but aren’t scheduled to meet in the regular season.

The Black Bears are playing a Class B schedule in the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference, which includes games against Mt. View, Gardiner, Leavitt and Camden Hills, all of whom are in Eastern Class B.

 

Staff Writer Rachel Lenzi can be reached at 791-6415 or at: rlenzi@pressherald.com