Matt Haney’s work day is one administrative task after another as the ninth-year principal of Mount Desert Island High School in Bar Harbor.
Now his after-school hours are nearly just as busy since Haney has added to those duties as the Trojans’ new head baseball coach.
“It was a golden opportunity that came available for me,” he said. “I love baseball and had coached a lot of baseball in the past, and I also have had the privilege of coaching a lot of the players that are currently on the high school teams during their youth years as they were coming up through.”
While some athletic administrators still coach at their high schools, principals doubling as coaches are rare today — a fact Haney weighed before taking the baseball job.
“I’m just so fortunate to have such a great, supportive team here at the high school between Bunky Dow, the athletic director, and everybody else that works and pitches in,” he said.
That team includes Haney’s players and coaching staff, with the latter group featuring two head coaches from other sports in junior varsity baseball coach Brent Barker (girls basketball), and varsity assistant Max Mason (boys soccer), as well as volunteer assistants Steve Keblinsky and Bear Paul.
Haney brings plenty of experience to the post.
Haney captained an Eastern Maine championship baseball team from George Stevens Academy as a senior at the Blue Hill school in 1994, then played at the University of Maine for four years before serving as an assistant coach on the Orono campus from 1999 to 2001 under former Black Bears’ head coach Paul Kostacopoulos.
After returning to Hancock County, he became athletic director at Sumner Memorial High School in East Sullivan and coached the Trenton Acadians American Legion baseball team during the early 2000s.
Haney has spent the last 17 years at MDI, with eight years as an assistant principal before being promoted to principal. He also coached youth baseball in the area before moving up to the varsity ranks in March after Andy Pooler stepped down as the Trojans’ head coach.
“The players have been really good about being flexible, like when it’s ‘OK, I have to go to a board meeting now,’” Haney said. “We move things around here and there, but I’ve got a great assistant in Max Mason who fills in readily when I have to pop out of practice.”
The Trojans ranked third in Class B North with a 2-1 record after Tuesday’s 3-2 win at defending state champion Old Town.
MDI managed just two hits but scratched out three runs in the top of the fourth inning to outlast Coyotes’ ace Gabe Gifford, who struck out 14 and walked no one in this rematch of a 2021 regional semifinal when Old Town scored twice in the bottom of the seventh for a 7-6 victory.
“It was a very different team that we brought up there [Tuesday],” said Haney of an MDI roster that graduated seven seniors last June. “Gabe Gifford is an amazing pitcher and we were very fortunate to persevere. … I think we only got four guys on base but three of them scored and that’s how you win a game against a good pitcher.”
MDI is led by its two seniors, Quentin Pileggi and A.J. Lozano, who teamed with sophomore Jay Haney — the coach’s son — to pitch the Trojans past Old Town.
Lozano and Haney each worked two innings before Pileggi — an All-Penobscot Valley Conference player last spring after going 4-1 with an 0.67 earned run average — pitched three innings of scoreless relief for the save.
Pileggi also plays center field while Lozano, who transferred back to MDI this year after playing as a junior at Bangor High School, starts at shortstop when not pitching.
“I love the way our team works together,” Haney said. “They compete, and that’s one of the things I love about them, they play really hard and they compete viciously, to the point where I think we have a chance to surprise some people this year.”
MDI hosts Foxcroft Academy of Dover-Foxcroft on Friday, then faces three games next week against John Bapst of Bangor, George Stevens Academy and Brewer.
But busy stretches are nothing new for the Trojans’ principal and coach.
“It’s always in the back of my mind that I want to make sure I’m doing both things as well as I possibly can,” Haney said. “Being the principal of a high school is a really big job, a really important job and a lot of people count on me so I want to make sure all the students and teachers and everybody else gets what they need from me, and the players need that, too.
“I’m getting up early and staying up late and trying to get all that done, and I’m making sure both things remain a priority.”
