SOUTH BERWICK, Maine — Two days before his team’s season opener last week, Marshwood High School girls basketball coach Lee Petrie had a game film running in the small office off the locker room that he shares with, among other things, cheerleading equipment.
He couldn’t have felt more at home.
It was 13 months ago that Petrie made an abrupt departure from leading the team he’d guided for nearly a decade. He and his wife, Jeannie, finalized the adoption of 14-year-old Temesgen, an Ethiopian boy, and fatherhood trumped coaching with him taking a leave of absence.
“I can’t imagine not doing it now,” said Petrie. “It’s been great.”
After a one-year sabbatical to help ease his son’s transition into American — and Marshwood — society, Petrie is back on the sidelines. The Hawks (0-1), who feature a deep group of upperclass players, will try to get their first win of the season Tuesday at Windham.
With Petrie, who teaches social studies at Marshwood Middle School in Eliot, stepping away last year, JV coach Angie Littlefield was promoted and coached the team to an 8-10 record, though the math of the Heal Points system left the Hawks as the first team out in the Western Maine Class A playoffs.
Players downplayed the preseason adjustment — again.
“We took it in stride,” said senior guard Lydia St. Pierre. “It was more us having a fire because we didn’t make the playoffs last year. So it was more about focusing on that, about getting better.”
“We have 10 returners and a lot of experience, so I think it’s going to be a good season,” said senior forward Hanna Philbrick.
Littlefield, a former standout player at Seacoast Christian School in town, is back on the JV sidelines this winter.
“Angie did such a great job last year keeping the program going,” said Petrie. “We just picked up and off we went.”
Senior guard Megan McLean was a freshman on the last Marshwood team that made some postseason noise, going 16-4 and getting edged by Scarborough in the regional semifinals.
“We just have a lot of experience going in,” she said. “We have all juniors and seniors and it’s really good to have that. We all work together as a team.”
It was Team Petrie that was building the foundation for future success last winter.
The Petries had friends that had adopted a boy through the Kolfe Orphanage for Boys in Addis Ababa, the largest and capital city in Ehtiopia, with a population of more than 3.3 million people that’s increasing annually by almost 4 percent.
Temesgen — “Tem” — who attended Marshwood Middle School in Eliot last year as an eighth-grader, is now a freshman at the high school, where he’s been working out with an eye on trying out for the school’s lacrosse team in the spring.
“And now that we’re in the second year,” said Petrie, “he’s talking abut what we did at this time last year — Thanksgiving, Christmas.”
He estimated he took in “four or five” games last winter — “but totally out of it,” he said. “When you’re away, you’re away. You can’t be half in and half out.”
Basketball remained a passion, if not Marshwood basketball.
“It wasn’t like I completely removed myself from the game,” he said. “I did a lot of reading. What I really got a chance to do is re-evaluate myself as a coach, seeing what was working and what wasn’t.”
Nobody’s listing the Hawks among the favorites in Western A heading into the year. But they should win their share of games, behind veterans like McLean and St. Pierre, fellow seniors Philbrick, Joelle Casey and Gianna Riccardi, and juniors like Kat Locke, Emily Robida and Hailey Tarr.
They lost their opener at Gorham, which is expected to be one of the division’s better teams, by a 43-40 score last Friday.
“I think we’re quicker; we’re more of a fast-paced, up-tempo, hard defense team,” said St. Pierre. “We’ve incorporated a couple new presses and we’ve got a lot of depth on the bench, so we can keep putting fresh legs in without missing beat a beat.”
They’re eager to get back after it. And their coach is glad to be back with them.
“The support of the kids,” began Petrie. “They were so supportive of it. When I made the announcement Hannah Philbrick jumped up and gave me a big hug. … I didn’t miss the game as much as I missed the kids in the game.”
Mike Zhe is a Herald staff writer. He can be reached at mzhe@seacoastonline.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MikeZhe603.