For the fourth consecutive season, the Hampden Academy softball team has a new coach.
Former Brewer High School assistant softball coach Jarrod Williams is the new coach and has led the Broncos to a 3-2 start. That includes a 4-3 victory over reigning Class A North champion Oxford Hills of South Paris.
He is replacing Deb Colpitts, who guided the Broncos to a 12-4 regular season record last spring, which earned them the third seed for the Class A North playoffs.
They beat Messalonskee of Oakland 1-0 in the quarterfinals before losing to Oxford Hills 7-3 in the semifinals.
Hampden Academy athletic director Barry Terrill said Colpitts resigned for health reasons.
Jaimee Perry had led HA to a 9-7 record and a post-season berth during the 2023 campaign before stepping down.
Matt Madore had guided the Broncos to a 13-3 mark in 2022 which was the program’s first winning campaign since the 2008 season.
That was Madore’s fifth season on the bench but he left after the campaign due to work commitments.
Williams is coming off a highly-successful run as the head coach of the Penobscot Pioneers’ cooperative high school girls ice hockey team. Former Pioneers volunteer assistant Meghan MacDonald will coach the hockey team next season.
The Pioneers, in their first three seasons of existence, compiled a 35-16-3 regular season record and reached the Class A North championship game in their first two campaigns where they lost to Yarmouth-Freeport.
They went 4-3 in the playoffs with all three losses coming to top seed Yarmouth-Freeport.
Williams had been an assistant softball coach and the junior varsity coach at Brewer the previous two seasons.
He was one of several applicants for the job, according to Terrill.
Terrill knew Williams because several Hampden Academy girls played for the Pioneers. Hampden Academy is one of seven local high schools that produce players for the Pioneers.
“We were happy to find someone with his experience,” said Terrill. “He knows softball and he knows our kids.”
Williams said he was watching Husson University’s softball team playing in Florida, and he asked Husson head softball coach Rick Roberts about Hampden Academy’s team because Roberts is a well-respected pitching coach in eastern Maine. Williams said that Roberts told him Broncos junior pitcher Cat Facchini was “going to have an amazing year” after a good winter working with the Husson coach.
Facchini struck out 20 Bangor High hitters in a 5-4 nine-inning loss on Wednesday night.
The new Hampden head coach said he “knew at some point I’d want to take a varsity position somewhere” and believes that Brewer coach Skip Estes “is going to be there for a while” for the Witches.
“This would have been my first choice if it wasn’t Brewer,” said Williams, who added that Estes “does an amazing job” in Brewer.
“A lot of the stuff I use coaching here is stuff I learned from him over the last few years,” said Williams.
Terrill said he was “very pleased” with the job Williams has done so far this season.
“I’ve coached a lot of girls over the summer who played for Hampden so that’s why this would be the choice, for sure,” Williams said.
“I’m very happy to be here and honored to be the coach. It’s a good team and, even though we lost to Bangor, this team is going to be successful,” added Williams.
