by Amy Bass
“Second ball!” Gish yells from the sideline.
Nuri is on it. In two giant steps, he gets there and sends the ball into the open net. Goal.
Camden’s coach, Ryan Hurley, is furious. During the first half of the game, he claimed a Lewiston player without a mouth guard took a chunk out of one of his players’ heads. Now he wants a call because Boetsch got kicked after taking possession, causing the ball to roll free. It should be a free kick, he claims. It’s a dead ball! Where’s the call?
Because of Hurley’s complaints, the officials later asked McGraw for the game tape. McGraw went to the meeting where referees reviewed it. There was no question, they decided. The keeper lost possession. According to McGraw, every referee said, “I can’t see where he’s coming from.”
Leading 2–0, Lewiston’s offense keeps at it. Moving the ball with rapid short passes, no single player in possession for very long, makes it seem like there are more of them on the field. Keeping their eyes on one another, never looking down, they stay a few steps ahead of Camden.
When the final whistle blows, Lewiston has outshot Camden 26–8. Nuri put another one in, and Camden’s Kienan Brown answered, breaking away to boot the ball high overhead, out of Austin’s reach, from twenty-five yards away. With the score 3–1, Lewiston’s defense kicked into higher gear, keeping the ball out of Camden’s reach as time ticked toward the end. They didn’t need more scoring opportunities. They just needed to hold tight. The speed of the Blue Devils’ defense, Hurley later told the press, was second to none. Most teams had speed up top. Lewiston had it front to back.
It is the first time that Lewiston doesn’t score four or more in a game, but McGraw will take it. The team dutifully heads back to the far goal for a debriefing. They’ve got Oxford Hills in four days, and McGraw wants to make sure they have learned something from this one they could take into that one. And do your homework, he concludes.
As the players scatter, McGraw walks slowly to the bench with the assistants, exchanging observations—how to strengthen one player’s left side, how to develop the inside foot of another. They never stop; it’s what they love to do. As McGraw lugs the bag of balls to the trunk of his car, he thinks about what a satisfying win it was, but reminds himself, again, not to get complacent.
Four days later, the Oxford Hills Vikings came to town. McGraw heard the team was down six starters, suspended by the coach for doing something—he didn’t know what—stupid. Idiots, he thought. We’ve all got them.
Austin sat the bench with a sore hamstring and shoulder. He’d sat out Cony, too, but played through the pain against Camden Hills. He was happy to give Alex the start against the Vikings, happier still when he realized he had the best seat in the house for Lewiston’s offensive show.
The game felt over almost before it began. The Blue Devils scored two goals in the first three minutes, and never stopped. They rode the high of beating Camden Hills to demolish a greatly diminished Vikings squad, 14–1.
“Baseball scores,” Maulid liked to say of such games.
Thirteen different Blue Devils scored, including a few who had seen little playing time thus far. Nuri nabbed a pair of goals; Muktar a goal and three assists; Mwesa a goal and two assists. Lewiston took thirty-one shots on goal. Alex made just two saves, and missed Oxford Hills’ Kelton Loper’s soaring free kick that went in just beneath the crossbar.
“Games aren’t like this all the time,” McGraw reminded them. “When you win like this, you need to show them respect, because you just showed them how to play the game, you set an example.”
“Don’t gloat,” he said. “It cheapens the win. Be the better man.”
It was Lewiston’s top-scoring game of the season. Next, they shut out Messalonskee 7–0, with Abdi H. contributing a hat trick, before gearing up to face rival Edward Little again.
The rematch brought in Lewiston’s largest home crowd of the season, 350 paid admissions, with at least another 100 coming in at the half. The game felt unbalanced from the get-go, Edward Little’s 3–6–4 record paling next to Lewiston’s 13–0. Making sure his former teammates knew he was there, Maslah blasted the ball into the net for Lewiston’s first goal. In the second half, Karim scored at the three-minute mark. Five minutes later, he and Abdi H. netted a pair within twenty-six seconds of each other. When the final whistle blew, Lewiston outshot the Red Eddies 27–4, just one ball getting through Austin’s legs.
“Blue we bleed,” Joe wrote on his Facebook page of the 6–1 win. “Strong we remain.”
There was just one game left in the regular season. Perennial conference foe Hampden Academy, best known as the school where Stephen King once taught English, came to Don Roux field on Saturday, October 17, 2015. An undefeated season and the top seed in the playoffs hung in the balance for Lewiston.
For eleven Blue Devils, it was Senior Night. Their families were there in full force: mothers, fathers, and siblings. There was a formal photo session before the game. Karim and Zak’s dad made a rare appearance, but he couldn’t stay.
“I’m sorry,” he told McGraw, “but after we take the picture, I gotta go.”
McGraw understood. Business was business, and he had to get back to work.
As the seniors assembled for their photos, McGraw thought about their record. In the course of four years, this group lost only twice, boasting 49–2–5. But that last regular-season loss, way back on September 14, 2013, was against Hampden, a brutal 4–0 game.
This game was another story.
The thirty-ninth straight regular-season victory for the Blue Devils started seven minutes in with a rocket from Abdi H. The ball moved with such force toward the net, it felt like time stood still, despite the scramble of defenders. Hampden keeper Kyle Townsend weakly deflected it, allowing Muktar to swoop in and pocket the rebound. A few minutes later, Abdi H. fed Maslah to go up 2–0.
With a minute left in the half, Abdi H. readied a pass to Maslah but felt the wind pick up ever so slightly. Before he had time to think, his feet made the decision, launching the ball from the left high over Townsend’s reaching hands and into the top right corner of the net. That was pretty special, he thought as he slid on his knees in celebration, teammates piling around him. A nice goal on Senior Night. I am going to remember this a long, long time.
Abdi H. was in his element. His transformation when he took possession of the ball was always a sight to behold, but it was even more pronounced in this game. He looked bigger, his razor-sharp focus intense as he moved the ball downfield, two or more defenders following, a feeling of calm sweeping over his teammates and the fans because they knew the ball was with the best possible person on the field.
Early in the second half, an indirect kick put the Broncos on the board, giving them some badly needed momentum. But Lewiston wasn’t having any of it, responding again and again. Even McGraw, who always found something they could work on, was pretty pleased with the 5–1 win. The Blue Devils closed their regular season 14–0. The top seed, they would have the home-field advantage for the playoffs.
“This is our house,” Moe said, looking around Don Roux. Everyone from Australia’s national rugby team to the New Jersey Devils used the phrase, popularized by the Bon Jovi sports anthem. But with this team, in this city, at this moment, it took on a whole new meaning.
Chapter 14
Straight Red
The Blue Devils entered the playoffs with as much baggage as momentum. Undefeated, they’d outscored opponents 100–7. But they also carried the weight of several years’ playoff anguish.
We have work to do, Abdi H. reminded his teammates. Playoffs are different.
But if the USA Today/NSCAA Super 25 poll, which ranked Lewiston seventeenth in the nation, was any indication, they were ready. They were the only team ranked from Maine, and one of only three from New England.
“Where are we ranked in the world?” they asked McGraw when he told them the news.
There was no doubt their celebrity was on the rise.
But none of it mattered, insisted Abdi H. Not the unbeaten streak, not the goals, not the national ranking. Not even the film crew on the sideline, directed by Lewiston alum Ian Clough, a local filmmaker who once played for McGraw and now wanted to make a documentary about his beloved coach.
None of it mattered. The Blue Devils, just one year after upstart Cheverus took them down, were starting over. And they were doing it against Edward Little.
The locker room grind felt different before the first playoff game. They still had to get dressed, find tape, and ice things that hurt. Most of them were sore, especially those who played in the park. No one stretched before games at Somali Stadium; they just hit the field hard and never stopped.
McGraw launched into a tactical discussion almost immediately, taking advantage of the rare quiet saturating the room.
“Don’t get cute with the ball, because they’re good enough,” he said, always worried that too much of their street game would show up on the field. “You make a mistake—it could cost you. Be smart, not perfect. Move quickly. Horrendous call? Nothing you can do about it—get where you need to be. If you can’t go forward, go backward.”
McGraw stopped, wanting to let them finish getting ready so they could focus. Who needed more tape? Who needed to add another layer for warmth? Maslah put black tights beneath his shorts, worried about the temperature after the sun went down. Once everyone settled, McGraw continued.
“Go after THIS one. There’s no other game. THERE IS NO OTHER GAME. If you win this game? Then, we’ll see. But you’ve got to play your hearts out. You have to deal with the physical part, you have to deal with the mental part, you have to deal with what you have to do in order to win the game. Pressure the ball. The minute the ball gets to them, we have to have a white shirt on ’em. Right? One white shirt, the next one in support, the third one in support of him, and we get numbers around the ball, and we get the ball, pass, bring it down, get a cross, get a shot, put it in, LET’S WIN THE GAME.”
“Yeahhhh,” the players droned, clustering around him, clapping, hopping, pushing to get closer, their heads buried in each other’s necks.
“Huh, huh, huh, huh,” they chanted, bouncing. “ONE, TWO, THREE, PAMOJA NDUGU!”
“LET’S GO!” Zak bellowed as he rushed into the hallway.
The team wore the look of men going to war. As they warmed up, everything felt tense, different. After the last words from McGraw—“DON’T TAKE YOURSELVES OUT OF THE GAME! BE SMAHT!”—the starters ran to midfield and fell to their knees, arms around each other, heads down.
“Win it for McGraw,” someone said, thinking about the ultimate goal, believing they were the team who could make it happen. From the sideline, Gish noticed the intensity, the huddle bouncing on its knees.
“This is our house,” Moe repeated as the huddle broke. He wanted this so badly. It almost hurt, this swelling inside of him, this anxiety, this spirit. If they could do this, it would be one of the great accomplishments of his life. Everyone wants McGraw to win, Moe thought. The guys, the school, the city. This is our moment.
Muktar and Maslah jogged to the center of the field.
“Have fun, all right?” McGraw yelled after Muktar. “Just have fun and do your job!”
With a quick touch, the game began.
Edward Little came out hard, defending the middle, which Lewiston expected. They knew they had to play an outside game; they just didn’t know it was going to be so rough. From his roost, Austin noticed that they were targeting Maslah, hacking at his ankles. Then Maulid tripped up. And Karim. Joe kicked a cannon shot; seconds later, he went down. Even on resets, there was a lot of pushing. A shoulder here, a foot there.
We’re spending a lot of time on the ground, Austin thought. Things were, McGraw would say, “gettin’ physical.”
Finally, Abdi H. was successful. Running down the middle into the attacking third, he took a cross from Q. Barely dodging an incoming slide tackle—“Nice move, H!” yelled McGraw—in three touches he fired the ball into the net, well out of the reach of EL’s diving goalie, before falling to the ground himself. Goal! Maulid and Q ran to embrace him, Muktar and Joe not far behind.
“That’s the one we needed,” Gish said to McGraw.
It was the only goal in the first half.
At halftime, a few Lewiston fans observed an official mocking Maslah’s reaction to getting manhandled. Kim Wettlaufer and Carolyn McNamara were incensed. McNamara wasn’t just a rabid Lewiston soccer fan; a lot of these players were her patients, her vested interest in their health adding to her anxiety over what she was seeing. She let the referees know. As Coach Abdi paced the bleachers, coffee in hand, an official came over to speak with McNamara. “I’m going to talk to Fuller,” he told her, “if you guys don’t shut up.”
“Go ahead!” McNamara yelled, laughing at the absurdity of Fuller throwing her, of all people, out of a soccer game. “Tell Fuller! Do you want me to get him for you?”
Maulid just shook his head at the ref. He could take whatever another player threw at him, but he hated it when the refs made a bad call. He respected the refs; he would never argue, since he couldn’t change what they did. But there were times when it got to him, when he wanted to walk off the field and give up. Sometimes it felt like they had an extra opponent on the field. But he learned to play on, to use it to play better and score more. Bad calls, for whatever reason, were just part of being a Blue Devil.
Looking at Maslah, Gish had no doubt that he was injured. He wasn’t the kind of player who flopped. Gish saw him get pushed when he was in the air, going down hard on his ankle. Yet inexplicably, the foul was called on him.
Kill it with kindness, Gish repeated in his head, his mother’s mantra, as he walked over to the ref.
“Sir,” he began, his voice quiet, “what did you see?”
“He—Maslah—totally created that,” the ref replied. Gish thanked him and walked away, his head exploding. They were playing two games, he thought, one against EL, the other against the officials.
McGraw didn’t care about officiating. He had a game to win. When he addressed the team at the half, he made sure they knew that.
“You have forty minutes,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who scores, it’s us who scores. Work as a team. Do things as a team. Pass. Help each other. As soon as you can, put the ball on the ground.”
But he wasn’t blind. He saw what everyone else did.
“Listen: do not lose composure when there’s a grab, an elbow, push—play your game, wear ’em down, break ’em down. It’s playoffs. It’s do or die…The next goal is a very important goal.”
“ONE, TWO, THREE, PAMOJA NDUGU!”
In the second half, Lewiston launched an aggressive attack to the delight of the growing home crowd, some 275 paid admissions. But neither a rocket from Abdi H. nor a shot from Maslah, who beat off an entire scrum of Red Eddies, hit the net.
Finally, from the outside right corner, Maulid capitalized on a short chop from Abdi H., lobbing the ball into the goal on a gorgeous run that didn’t stop until he went down on bended knee, hands high overhead. Leaping to his feet, he ran back to midfield, his arms around Dek. With thirty minutes left, Lewiston led 2–0.
“Did I call it?” McGraw shouted at the bench. “Did I call it?”
“I heard you!” Alex Rivet replied, running over to celebrate, staying warm in case Austin needed to come out.
“You know what that was?” McGraw asked Hersi, who was calling out reset instructions in Somali. “Guys were persistent. They stayed right with it.”
With eleven minutes left on the clock, Lewiston’s offense picked up its pace. Abdi H. sprinted downfield, three maroon shirts marking him, and took a long pass from Karim. Stopping short, just a few yards to go, he flicked the ball with the outside of his right foot over EL’s defense. Not waiting for the ball to land, Maslah threw his right leg into the air for a one-touch goal, Tae Kwon Do style.
Zlatan Ibrahimović himself could not hav
e done it better.
Maulid ran and jumped on his cousin’s back, ecstatic. This is how it’s supposed to feel, he thought, joy surging as the scoreboard clicked to 3–0.
“Let’s get another one,” McGraw yelled, putting his hands into the pockets of his big blue parka, settling into its warmth. He knew they had their rhythm now. It was going to be all right.
“One more!”
He doesn’t stop, thought Austin, who pounced on two balls to preserve the shutout. Even if we’re up by seven goals, he never stops.
Less than a minute after Maslah’s goal, Muktar passed a short ball to Abdi H., who was surrounded by no less than eight Red Eddies in front of the box. Out of the corner of his right eye, Abdi H. saw Karim a few yards back. He passed. Karim juggled for a moment, and then left-footed the ball through the traffic, sending EL’s keeper, Owen Mower, into a fruitless dive.
Four to nothing.
They kept attacking, feeling no need to step back into a defensive shell and protect their lead. Nuri brought the ball down the left side and crossed to Maslah, who hit the crossbar with a header. As Maslah headed the rebound, Maulid ran toward it.
“SECOND BALL!” screamed McGraw and Gish.
Maulid turned left and launched himself high, his back to the net, scissor-kicking the ball up and over. Landing on the ground, he turned to see Mower punch the ball over the crossbar and out of bounds.
“Damn,” Maulid yelled. “If that had gone in, it would’ve been niiiiiice.”
With less than a minute left, Abdi H. lobbed the ball into the net on a free kick.
“What a nice shot!” McGraw croaked, his voice almost gone, as the team celebrated. “What a NICE SHOT!”
At the whistle, Lewiston had outshot EL 22–2. Alex body-slammed Austin, while Jason Fuller, buried in his blue hood to ward off the encroaching cold, thanked the officials. After Coach Abdi conferred with McGraw for a few minutes about the game, the two embraced, taking a moment to rejoice in the 5–0 quarterfinal win. But they knew it wasn’t over.
