ROCKPORT — From coaches yelling commands, players roaring and grunting, to the constant chatter and clapping of the crowd, the air was thick with noise at the Camden Hills versus Belfast high school football game hosted by the National Guard at Don Palmer Field Saturday, Oct. 18.

Camden Hills players sprinted onto their home field to face off like Spartan warriors prepared to defend their land, running out of the large inflatable football helmet provided by the National Guard.

The game was also Camden Hills’ Senior Day, which recognizes seniors who are playing their last season on the team.

"I expect the team to give a really good fight today," said Camden Hills’ head coach Steve Wadsworth said before the contest. "I'm really proud of their effort last week at homecoming, the boys played really strong and I would love to see them repeat that effort in today's game. The top players I'm going to be watching out for today are Taylor Crosby, Brandon DeBrosky, Kaylo Littlejohn, and Nate Pascal."

Statistics from the game were not immediately available.

Despite the coach's hopes, Camden was not able to give quite the fight he was looking for. Both teams played hard, but at the end of the day, Belfast came out on top with a final score of 45-14.

Camden players looked visibly upset and shaken from the loss, which dropped them to 0-7 for the season. 

Senior Bryan Clement (Camden Hills), who played extremely hard despite taking some brutal hits from Belfast, said, "We played hard today with the people we had. It was basically a skeleton crew because we had a lot of people out with grade issues, so that made it tough to prepare for a team as dynamic as Belfast. The story of the game was our turnovers. At the half they were up by five touchdowns, and we had five turnovers in the first half. Our offense wasn't doing that bad we would just turn over the ball in the red zone.”

“In the future, this program will have several issues it has to fix. I'm not a coach, but we are graduating half our team this year, and almost all of our seniors are starters that the team depends on. The future will be dependent on whether guys want to put the work in over the offseason, get in the weight room frequently. When you see teams like Winslow, Belfast, Waterville, the difference between them and us is what our players do in the offseason.”

“We are finishing up the season against Nokomis Friday night under the lights. That is going to be a tough team because their line is huge, but they are beatable, as is everybody. The key is recognizing that the game is won "during the week" as my coach says. We have to have a hard and intense week of practice if we want to have any chance of winning the game against Nokomis."

Reach Ben McKenna and the sports department at sports@penbaypilot.com.