A Telstar player scores a touchdown in an early-season home game. File photo

BETHEL — Hot start, cold finish, that was Telstar’s inaugural season in eight-man football in a nutshell.

After opening the season with a loss at Old Orchard, the Rebels rattled off three straight wins before dropping their final four contests of the year. With a 3-5 end of the season record, the Rebels narrowly missed out on playoff contention.

“We kind of did a tailspin in those last four games,” Head Coach Tim O’Connor said.

He added that if Telstar had won one more game the Rebels would have made the playoffs. He cited the team’s two point loss against Traip Academy as a game they could have won.

O’Connor said that although the team suffered some injuries, they simply did not play as well in the second half.

“We had fumbles. We had penalties. We shot ourselves in the foot,” O’Connor said. “Those types of mistakes hurt us.”

Offensively in eight-man football, two tackles and a running back are eliminated. Teams have to have five players on the line of scrimmage and three players in the backfield, the latter of which is usually a quarterback, wingback and running back.

Defensively, O’Connor said teams will usually lose two defensive tackles and one other position.

“It’s all mixed up, people can do whatever. There’s flexibility in what you can do,” O’Connor said.

He said making the transition to eight-man football was not much of a challenge and that the team benefited greatly from the transition. There were 21 players on the roster, which allowed many players to only play on one side of the ball.

The team had four seniors, so O’Connor expects to see plenty of familiar faces on the gridiron next year. He also said that there were nine eighth-graders on the middle school team who he hopes will continue to play at the high school level.

Looking ahead, O’Connor said a big focus will be conditioning.

“We’re going to concentrate on strength training and fitness,” he said.

Ten teams joined the eight-man football league this year. They were split up into two five-team divisions. Telstar was in the small school division, along with Old Orchard, Traip Academy, Sacopee Valley and Boothbay. The large school division consisted of Maranacook, Yarmouth, Ellsworth/Sumner, Gray-New Gloucester and Mt. Ararat.

Telstar earned a win against Gray-New Gloucester, and also defeated Sacopee Valley and Boothbay.

O’Connor has coached the team since football returned to Telstar more than 10 years ago.

Middle School Football

It was Dominic Haines’ third year as head coach and his most successful one yet, with the team earning its first home playoff berth in decades. The Rebels finished the season with a 6-1 record, but unfortunately fell in a hard fought 24-22 game against the Lisbon Greyhounds in the first round. Despite not getting the end result they wanted, Haines saw many positives in his team this year.

“We were one of the strongest running teams in the league. When we were on our A-game, we were one of the most physical teams as well,” he said. “We had great run blocking at times and strong backs in the backfield.”

As for weaknesses, he said the number of players was a challenge to work with compared to other schools. Haines also said that the team struggled to consistently bring the same level of physicality and play on a week-to-week basis.

Looking forward, he said next year will be a rebuilding year in some ways, with the team losing eight eighth-graders. He also hopes that the incoming eighth-graders can be a “pillar of leadership” for the large crop of seventh-graders.

Haines added that as of now he is unsure what league the team will play in next year. He said he will be on the lookout for a middle school eight-man league that offers similar competitiveness as an 11-man league, but said if the search comes up empty, they will return to the Central Maine Football Middle School League.

The CMFL consisted of Mt Valley, Lisbon, Poland (Tri-Town), Maranacook, Winthrop/Monmouth, Spruce Mountain and Oak Hill.