Honeycomb Headlines

On this edition of coaches corner we talked to Coach Kyle Rines. Coach Rines who grew up in the Harford area went to high school in Buckfield and college at University of Maine at Farmington, he later was the assistant coach for the girls college team for 4 years. Other sports he has coached include: 5 years of boys varsity baseball at Buckfeild and 13 years of varsity boys soccer also at Buckfeild, he has now just ended his 3rd year as a varsity girls basketball head coach here at Leavitt. When asked about why he decided to coach sports Rines explains his love for sports and winning as a main reason for his decision as well as his competitive drive for sports.

Moving onto the latest season (2025-26 season) for the girls basketball varsity hornets, coach Rines talks about their 7-11 regular season record which put them into the 7th seed for class B south. Heading into the post season the Hornets hosted number 10 seed Lake Region in prelims where their season sadly came to an end. Although a tough loss in the prelims hurt, Rines explains this was still one of his favorite years of coaching, everyone had a really good time and there was a pretty good team dynamic, as there were no expectations of what the dynamic would look like after a very good 2024-25 season the year before. Going more into this latest season Rines states the toughest game as the first away game of the season against Gray New Gloucester who they played for the first time in years due to the re-classing after last season. Being unprepared and not seeing what GNG was looking like caused a pretty bad loss for the girls. Other than GNG, he points out senior night was also challenging as they started losing power but still played an amazing game. Through the wins and losses Rines points out how the togetherness and well bonded team showed that “we all wanted best for each other” and “it brought us through some tough challenges.” 

When discussing players, leaders, and approaches coach Rines sees seniors Gabby Smith and Brooke Boutaugh as the main leaders. He talks about Gabby being a solid leader even since last year, taking the role, having a loud voice that is backed up by her playing as well as her toughness, “she’s also real which people appreciate … .you can see right through fake leadership” Rines explains. Other critical players this year were Sophia Poulin and Elizabeth Kowalski who Rines felt were impactful this season. And some crucial stats from this year include Brooke Boutaugh who led the team in steals and blocks, Gabby Smith who led the team in rebounds and assists and another senior Jordyn Boulay who led the team in 3 point makes and 3rd in the state for 3 pointers as well. Coach Rines continues in talking about how this season made way for a lot of sophomores including Sophia Poulin, Elizabeth Kowalski, Nora Johnson, and Alannah Worth who had lots of good experiences this season both in practice and games. 

Now heading into next season Lily Wang and Reese Daigle will step up into the senior leader roles although Elizabeth and Sophia will continue to take on the more vocal parts. When asked about people who will become more crucial players next season he sees Alannah Worth and Nora Johnson continuing to take crucial steps as well as seeing some playing time from Gabrielle Gagnon who was out all last season with an ACL tear. Focusing more on this team through the summer league younger players will be coming up who Rines says need to be coached and learn how to love the game, although he might not be there all summer he says “the times we are all together, make it fun, talk, make it about us, and practice a lot.” He wants the freshmen to feel comfortable with the older girls and summer is a great way to do that. Goals for this upcoming regular season though are to keep it at a 40 to 44 defensive points per game, Rines feels if its kept around that it will hopefully be pretty even, there is going to be a pretty similar schedule next season and although the girls basketball team is losing impactful players, so are other teams so “for us defense is key” he explains. Lastly we end by asking coach Rines advice for younger players he says: “Number 1, don’t be scared. It’s easy to be scared of varsity sports and high school but it isn’t scary…… and 2 deal and respond to failure, be tough, mentally, physically and emotionally”