Class of 2024 enshrined in PCHS Athletic Hall of Fame

GUILFORD — The sports history of Piscataquis Community High School continues to grow with the induction of a pair of athletes, two coaches, and a state championship team as the sixth class of the PCHS Athletic Hall of Fame.

The Class of 2024 was formally enshrined during a mid-afternoon ceremony in the gymnasium on Saturday, Sept. 28 as part of the school’s annual Homecoming festivities.

The PCHS Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2024 is made up of athletes Bryce Gilbert and Karen Hersey Ward, coaches Merle Gilbert and Tom Cyr, and the 1992 Class C champion field hockey team.

PCHS Assistant Principal/Athletic Director Andy Shorey welcomed everyone sitting on chairs set up on the gym floor and those gathered on the bleachers and congratulated the new hall of farmers. He thanked the hall of fame committee for its work choosing from submitted nominations and said forms for next year’s class are available.

Current PCHS wrestling coach Zac Wilson said Tom Cyr has been coaching soccer between middle and high school for multiple decades and he was instrumental in getting wrestling restarted at PCHS in 2007 after the sport had been discontinued decades prior

“It takes an enormous amount of dedication and passion, both traits Tom has,” Wilson said. He said Cyr wanted wrestling to also start at the middle school and youth levels when PCHS grappling began.

Wilson said he began wrestling in third grade in 2008 and he said Cyr made the sport fun, also knowing when to push and when to back off.

“I never cut a kid,” Cyr said about his soccer coaching, letting anyone willing to be part of the team stay on the roster.

He said PCHS administration wanted to offer something different for students around 2007 with “Reading, writing, and wrestling.” Cyr said students in the Learning for Life program were given wrestling rule books and Cyr assigned a few pages a night and they got to try what they read about on the mat. This led to having enough interest for a school team, jumping right into varsity competition.

The first season two Pirates qualified for the state championship and the team earned a Class C sportsmanship award. Cyr said after a few years Lucas Talbot and Ryan Botting, who both wrestled in high school, came on board and brought new energy to the program as he stepped down. 

“Two years later we had our first state champion in 45 years so it was a good move,” Cyr said.

Jamie Russell, himself a two-time hall of inductee as both a coach and as the head of the 2000-01 Class C East champion boys basketball team, mentioned Bryce Gilbert scored 1,474 points, had over 500 rebounds and 175 steals, shot 46 percent from the floor, and 33 percent on 3-point attempts during his four years at PCHS from 2014-18. Russell said Gilbert was chosen as a Maine McDonald’s Senior All-Star, and was a Penobscot Valley Conference First Team selection, later continuing his basketball career at the University of Maine-Fort Kent.

Gilbert earned Penobscot Valley Conference Player of the Year honors for soccer as he finished his career with 43 goals and 33 assists.

Russell said when Gilbert was 12 he seriously injured his right foot in a side-by-side accident, which would result in seven eventual surgeries. Russell said Gilbert had a goal to play soccer when he started seventh grade, and he would accomplish this feat as the resiliency laid the groundwork for later in Gilbert’s life.

Gilbert thanked his family, saying how they often traveled great distances to see him play, and his coaches for their belief in him. He thanked his teammates as well, saying they learned about hard work and doing the right thing and how to use these in all aspects of life.

Merle Gilbert has coached soccer, basketball, and baseball at various levels since 1985.

He said he did not yell at his players, saying a baseball player who dropped a flyball already knew they made a mistake. Gilbert said at the end of season dinner speech he always praised the practice players, or those who may not have been stars but were still important parts of the team.

“I have coached a lot of people and now I look out and I’m coaching their kids,” he said.

Ward graduated from PCHS in 1982 where she played field hockey, basketball, and softball. She was the field hockey goaltender all four years, including on the 1981 Class C East championship team, and scored four goals as a Pirate by being the team’s player to take penalty strokes.

After being the team MVP in each sport as a senior, Ward attended the University of Maine-Presque Isle where she played field hockey for four years and basketball as a freshman and sophomore.

Post-college, Ward came back home and coached sports and served as the middle school athletic director — one of the state’s first female athletic directors. Ward later moved to High View Christian Academy in Charleston to teach and coach and she currently is an ed tech in the special education department at Central High School in Corinth.

“Sports for me, it pretty much was my life,” Ward said. 

She said she played on boys baseball teams growing up and later played American Legion baseball, memorably throwing a runner out at first on her throw from right field to the amazement of the opposing team.

“Sports gave me a confidence I did not have,” she said.

The 1992 PCHS field hockey team went 17-1, and defeated Yarmouth High School 5-4 in overtime in that fall’s Class C championship. The Pirates scored 47 goals in the regular season and 11 in four playoff games. The defense gave up just eight goals in 14 regular season games and five in the postseason.

Head coach Donna Jordan — a 3-time hall of famer between her coaching career and two state championship teams who earlier in the day had the field hockey playing area dedicated to her — said against Yarmouth PCHS scored four times between the approximate 8:00 and 18:00 marks of the first half. She saw her players get more and excited with each goal, but worried the team would then crash.

Jordan said this happened as the Clippers scored twice before the half to trail 4-2. Yarmouth would later tie play at 4-4 with a potential fifth goal being called back as the officials ruled PCHS’ goalie was taken out. In overtime the Pirates scored on a penalty corner to win the state title.

The names of the 2024 hall of fame inductees will be added to those of the five prior classes on a board in the lobby. The hall of fame committee meets annually to consider nominations, and nomination forms are available at https://www.sad4.org/page/athletics.