BRUNSWICK

This morning and afternoon Mid-coast region high school athletic teams will be hitting the fields, trails and golf courses in preparation for the 2012 MPA fall season, which officially opens with games, matches and meets on Aug. 24 (golf), Aug. 29 (field hockey) and Aug. 31 (cross country, soccer, football, volleyball).

And, to various coaches, this first week means a lot of things from conditioning and repetitions to simply getting reacquainted.

“The first week is all about getting in shape and touches on the ball,” said Rick Renaud, Mt. Ararat High School boys soccer coach.

“We do about 50-50 on teaching and conditioning although everything we do is with a ball. Morning sessions are conditioning and afternoon sessions are tactical.

“We open with Scarborough on Friday, Camden on the 22nd, Gorham on the 24th and Gray on the 27th. In the preseason games I’m looking to see where we are in our conditioning, who is going to play what position and see who can come off the bench and help us. We are a veteran team, so hopefully we will come out of the gates strong.”

For Mt. Ararat field hockey coach Kelly LaFountain, it’s all about where her girls are at physically and what level of skills they possess.

“We try to assess where the girls are at skill-wise and conditioning wise,” offered LaFountain. “We challenge them physically and put them through a series of fundamental skill stations, along with some more involved drills both offensively and defensively. By doing this we have a pretty good idea what the make-up of each team will be by the third day.”

LaFountain expects her players come to camp ready to compete.

“I believe the girls need to be in good physical condition if they are going to have success at the high school level. A lot of times many of the players on other teams have as much, or more, skill but we want to be able to perform the skills at a high level in the last 10 minutes of the game where many games are won or lost due to the fatigue factor.

“Last year we had five games go into double overtime. We were able to do this because the girls had worked hard conditioning-wise in preseason. I see us having a lot of close games again this season, so we will spend a quarter of our practices conditioning with the rest spent teaching the concepts we want to focus on.

“We have five scrimmages lined up this preseason. Our first date is a playday where we play five shorter games and the others are played like a regular game. They are spread out enough so we can address things that come up in each of them to help prepare us for the regular season games. Look to move kids around to different positions in the early scrimmages to see the potential line ups we might be able to use. The last couple of scrimmages before our first game I will stay with the line-up we want to use against our first opponent so the girls are comfortable.

“This year is a longer preseason than usual. It is good and bad. Good because you have more opportunities to prepare the girls, but bad because sometimes you run the risk of tired athletes if you push them too hard. Our hope is to be able to get the most out of it by being more creative with our practice plans to keep it fresh and exciting so they want to continue to work hard to get better each day.”

Active in Freeport

Keeping his football players active is important, said Freeport coach Rob Grover.

“Days one and two are about technique-base offense … we try to keep the kids moving all the time and try to keep practice in game-like situations as much as we can. On days three and four we introduce our base defense and that’s the only deference from one and two.

“We spend a half hour on just conditioning. However, we are conditioning in all we do by keeping our players moving all the time. We do our conditioning in the middle of practice so our players are tired in the middle of practice to simulate how they may feel in the third and fourth quarter of a game.

“I feel this helps prevent mental mistakes. We never stop on working on technique all practices long.

“Our goal by the end of those four days is to have our base offense and our base defense in and all basic techniques done on both sides of the ball.

“We have a scrimmage with Maranacook and our exhibition game is with Lake Region. The scrimmage game will tell us if we need to move a player to a different position … and what we need to work on to get better. The exhibition tells what we need to improve on in game situations and any tweaks we may need to adjust.

“Preseason is hard work so we try to keep it as fun as we can while trying to get in everything you need to!”

Dragons start slow

Brunswick girls soccer coach Martyn Davison takes it one practice at a time.

“We start slowly and then build up our fitness and conditioning over the first week and ease down on Friday for a weekend tournament in Portsmouth, New Hamsphire,” said Davison.

“We do a three-hour session for preseason — two weeks — comprising an hour of fitness and conditioning, an hour of core exercises and the last hour of fitness with the ball, which involves lots of smallsided games and touches. This way we get to improve our fitness levels and see the girls play with the ball.

“We look to see everyone play with the emphasis on improving our game fitness and not necessarily on game result.

“Should be a good preseason and I am exited to see the girls play. We have a lot of rebuilding to do, but the core of the team is still there and we will look to do well again. The varsity squad will be smaller than in previous years, but we are all confident of another good season.”

Steve Boyce is coming off a very successful year that saw his Morse girls soccer team advance to the Western Maine Class B final before losing to Falmouth.

“During preseason my goal is to get the players to the same level of conditioning without losing anyone to injury,” offered Boyce. “Many of the girls play rec. soccer for us during the summer and hear the requests to get into shape, but often preseason is upon them before they realize it.

“So, during the first week, we introduce, or maybe reintroduce, the players to the physical demands of soccer while working on the technical aspects of the game. At the end of the first week, our players may be sore and tired, but they know the season has really started and the games are just around the corner.

At Morse it’s all about conditioning.

“Double sessions seem to work best for our program,” added Boyce. “We begin early each day with the focus on conditioning. Cooler mornings provide more acceptable venue for circuits, hills, speed work, etc. The only balls on the field are those needed for a particular exercise.

“We try to keep this practice short and finish before the heat is upon us. The players have a chance to recover and rehydrate for four hours before we begin our afternoon session.

“During the afternoon, we concentrate on the skills and tactical side of soccer. Many of our drills have a conditioning benefit to them but that is not their sole intention.

“Our goal in the second session is to maximize the number of touches each player gets on the ball. So in the morning, we work on conditioning for an hour and a half, while in the afternoon we spend two hours refining our soccer skills.

“This year we have preseason games with both Brunswick and Mt. Ararat. These will be fun because we don’t play them during the season any longer. In between these scrimmages, we have a tentative one with NYA.

“I use the scrimmages to see how we are coming together as a team, to see who is emerging as our team leaders and to highlight areas upon which we need to work.

“Preseason is important to us this year because we are young and building. How we progress during these first two weeks could be an indication as to what direction our regular season is headed.

“The fun part is that it is a new beginning for all of us just as every year before has been.”