Michael Hathaway has it rolling pretty well with his Leavitt (Maine) program.

Leavitt has won 22 straight games, and consecutive Class C state titles.

The team is coming off an 11-0 season that includes a win over Class A champion Thornton Academy.

We wanted to talk to Hathaway to see how he’s done it.

Here is an edited version of that conversation.

Adam Kurkjian: It can’t be very often in a given state is also in the third-highest classification. What is it that you guys got right? What is it you guys get right as a program, where you can be sort of a smaller team and still beat whoever?

MH: I think we’ve done a good job in our youth program for a long time. Our numbers have been good. That’s one of the things, lots of times, smaller schools competing with larger schools is tougher because you don’t have the depth. Up and down the lineup, your top guys might match up OK. Some of the other guys might not. We’ve been able to avoid that by having a good-sized roster most years. Having some kids to choose from is helpful at a small school. So I think our youth program has been a big part of it. We’ve had some good quarterbacks, too. We’ve done a good job at that position identifying some kids early on that would be pretty good. We’ve done a good job developing them. My son was the quarterback on the 2019 state championship. We had Hunter Hayes. We lost in 2021. We didn’t have a 2020 year because of the pandemic. Then, in ’21, Hunter Hayes was one of the best quarterbacks in Maine, and we lost to Cape Elizabeth in the finals there. He was really good, and then Noah Carpenter the ast two years. I think when you have who is one of the best quarterbacks in Maine, it makes it easier to compete with some of the best teams in Maine. Having the hot quarterback is like having the hot goalie, that great No. 1 pitcher, or whatever. When you roll a guy out there that has that kind of confidence, like Wyatt (Hathaway) did and Noah does, that makes it doable, too.

AK: Does it sometimes put a chip on your guys’ shoulders when you’re not as big as a Bonny Eagle or a Thornton Academy, or teams like that, and you can still beat them? Does that sort of drive your point home as a coach, and say, hey, we can play with anybody?

MH: I think a lot of the teams we’ve had in the past could have, too, but they were never afforded that opportunity in our scheduling to make that happen. I think the last couple years and schedules opened up, we’ve been able to play outside our classification, and play some games up. That’s given guys a chance to do that. When we get that chance, that’s obviously something we talk about, is not only are we reppin’ ourselves here, we’re going against these guys and putting ourselves out here, we’re reppin’ all the good small school teams that existed in the recent memory. All those guys would have wanted to have those chances. They all would have wanted to prove that they can play with those guys, too. We were one of the teams that got that opportunity. Obviously, Oxford Hills and Thornton Academy were in the Class A state game the year before. So to have both of those guys on the schedule and be able to go at them and then actually beat them was amazing.

AK: I know there’s University of Maine up there. There’s Bates. There’s Colby. There’s some good schools. But where do your guys mostly end up after going through your program? What kind of looks are they getting?

MH: Our two best players are going to Maine next year: Noah Carpenter and Jace Negley. Negley just won the Gaziano Award for the best defensive lineman in Maine. He was the best two-way lineman in Maine. Both of those guys are going there. We just sent a guy there the year before named Jack Boutaugh. We’re pretty good for putting a guy or two in that program every couple of years. We’ve had some guys up at Husson. Maddox Demers, who was our tailback and outside linebacker. He just signed with UNE. Hunter Hayes is down at Springfield. He’s playing linebacker down there. . . . It’s kind of been spread out a little bit. We don’t get a lot of NESCAC guys. Our demographic isn’t really that. We’re a pretty rural community. We don’t get a ton of those guys, but we’ve had a few guys. We had a free safety a few years ago that played at Colby. We’ve had a couple guys play at Bates, as well. We kind of spread them out.

AK: You guys really won decisively a lot this year. It was a pretty dominant run. But was there any turning point where you can point back and say, OK, this is where we made our hay?

MH: There was so much attention on that Oxford Hills game. It was our Homecoming game, and it was the first game outside our classification. We got that one, 21-14, and I think that gave us some confidence going into the rest of the schedule. Then we had to go up to Lawrence and play them, and they were a pretty good Class B team. But we beat them pretty good. Then, Thornton Academy, we were down at halftime I think it was 21-7. We came back and won that game, 35-21. That game was important, because we played Fryeburg in the regional final, who has really good and in our class. Those guys gave us a whale of a game. We were down, 23-12, going into the final quarter, and ended up winning 36-32. Like I told the reporter the other day, had we not beaten TA at TA on TA’s Homecoming in a big game like that, I don’t think we had the confidence and just the fortitude to do it in the regional final with our backs against the wall like that. Fryeburg gave us everything they could, and not a lot of things went our way that game and we managed to pull it out. The pressure of that game is a lot more than the pressure of a regular season game. That was the difference between having one of the greatest seasons ever in Maine, and having the most disappointing. We don’t win that game unless we go through that at TA where we’re behind and our leaders really came out and rallied our guys. We had that great second half against TA, and from there you always draw on that. I think that was probably the moment we knew we were going to be able to probably take on anything.