John Bapst field hockey coach to take over Bangor program

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Jul. 13—Edythe Dyer is hoping to bring her recipe for success at John Bapst Memorial High School down the road to the Bangor High School field hockey team.

The Hampden native is the new head coach of the Rams replacing Kasey Danforth, who stepped down after 10 years.

Dyer comes to the Bangor program having led John Bapst to a 7-6-1 record in Class B North in 2019, the team's first winning season in five years. She hopes to establish a feeder program beginning at the youth level in Bangor and preach fundamentals.

"Having coached at John Bapst for four years, Bangor has a lot of the same struggles. They don't have a direct feeder program so the girls aren't used to playing together," said Dyer, who will be assisted by Katie Walker. "I'm looking at a long-term situation with short-term and long-term goals."

The Northeastern University graduate was a three-year player for John Bapst during her own high school years, before moving to Rhode Island for her senior season. Dyer is also a real estate agent for ERA Dawson-Bradford Co., and spent 19 years as a real estate agent in Boston and was also the CEO of her own firm there.

Dyer said having a new artificial turf field at Cameron Stadium, which will be used by several different teams and will be unveiled later this summer, will "help us attract some new players." Bangor will play most of its field hockey games there this year.

Last fall, both the John Bapst and Bangor High teams had abbreviated seasons due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and there were no playoffs.

Danforth, like Dyer, had also made some headway with the Bangor program in recent years.

Bangor went 20-20-2 in Class A North in Danforth's last three full seasons before the pandemic after going 1-27 the previous two seasons.

Danforth left the position to spend more time with her family.

Dyer has been running the summer field hockey program for the past two weeks, having two-a-day workouts, and she said her players have surprised her.

"They are very hard workers. They're athletes. They're an amazing group of kids," she said.

Dyer intends to launch a fund-raising program for the team and get the players out in the community to "make everyone aware that we have a program. We want all the community support and parental support we can get. We want to get out there and do good things," said Dyer, who was also an assistant girls basketball coach at John Bapst.

Bangor High School Athletic Director Steve Vanidestine said Dyer loves field hockey and is a hard worker.

"Going forward, coach Dyer will have the advantage of playing under the lights at Cameron Stadium. Like every other coach here, she already knows we value hard work and getting better together," Vanidestine said

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