BANGOR — As droughts go, my 2012-13 state title drought wasn’t so bad. But as the scholastic year unfolded and started to draw to a close,  something definitely didn’t feel right.

This was a year unlike any other in my 14 covering high school sports for this fine newspaper. Until Saturday, a state championship trophy hadn’t been lifted in my presence, and it had left me with a little bit of an empty feeling.

Oh, I’d covered a championship team in the last nine months. But my colleague, the esteemed Mr. Oakes, was the only member of the Sun Journal sports department to witness Mt. Blue’s epic state football championship in person. I was stuck behind a desk that night.

The game was on the newsroom television, but I could only glance up at it occasionally. It seemed someone was scoring a touchdown every time I looked. I think  I shook my fist once and muttered something about Oakes owing me big time.

Kalle’s ears must have been burning, because he agreed to let me have the next plum assignment, whenever it might arise. But the winter offered nothing but a nagging back ache from blowing a foot of wet snow off of my 800-foot-long driveway seemingly twice a week.

I slogged through mud season hopeful that my day would come once the grass turned green. Baseball season held several promising prospects for a champion from our own back yard. Heck, I could make a case for three or four teams from Class C alone.

I remained confident through the regular season as a number of the local teams compiled impressive records. But like my lower lumbar region, that empty feeling kept nagging me.

So why should I care about whether I get to cover a state champion? I’m supposed to be neutral, dispassionate. See, it’s right there in the sports writer job description, right next to unkempt and overweight. 

But the best thing about being a sportswriter, besides getting paid to watch games and then write about them, is getting a front row seat to one of the best memory-making endeavors life has to offer. Getting to be a part of those memories, thanks to mom or grandma cutting out this little sliver of the sports section this column occupies semi-regularly and putting it in junior’s scrap book, is just a bonus.

The scrap book business has been booming in Dixfield for some time now. Dirigo High School has made a habit of cutting and pasting newsprint for posterity. The aforementioned Mr. Oakes didn’t dub it “Titletown” for nothing.

And so, it’s no surprise that Dirigo’s baseball team ended my personal drought on Saturday and added to its own deluge of hardware with an 8-2 win over Stearns in the Class C title game.

Not that this was an upset. The Cougars were one of the favorites coming into the season. In fact, if I may pump my own tires for a moment, I used 25 or so column inches in this very space almost exactly one year ago explaining why Dirigo, which had just made it two-out-of-three baseball titles in Standish, could very well be making it three-out-of-four in Bangor.

But the Cougars couldn’t just show up and claim their crown. Coach Ryan Palmer and his staff had to fill some big holes first, especially on the mound.

They went into last season that when they needed to win a game, Ben Holmes would take the ball and give them more than favorable odds. Holmes picked up his glove, his championship mementos, his diploma and moved on.

Palmer had hopes for Kaine Hutchins, but he was just a sophomore and it would be unfair to put that kind of pressure on him.  Senior Alex Snowman might be more suited to take on that weight, but his left knee, with its torn ACL from basketball season, might not.

But Palmer knew his potent offense would give him the time he needed to see how his pitching panned out. When the playoffs arrived, he had seen enough to determine Hutchins and Snowman were ready to share the load.

The defense showed it could back the pitchers up. The offense, meanwhile, went from potent to unstoppable, an added bonus. All of the intangibles the Cougars had built up from all of their winning paid off in tight, one-run contests in the first two rounds. Then came an unexpected blowout of St. Dom’s.

It was tough to see anyone beating the Cougars on Saturday. Making the long drive up 95, I had a feeling my drought would end in a few hours.

A tip of the cap to Dirigo. They ended a long year on a fun note. They usually do.