BY SAPNA PATHAK

There he stood, inside the dugout before the Class I softball finals watching his team warm up. That was when Wake Stillman walked from the opposing clubhouse, approached Rick Forge and handed him 20 T-shirts reading “State Finals: Goffstown vs Somersworth.”

Nineteen years later, Forge still has a hearty chuckle over one of his first encounters with the coach who’d later become a close friend – and favorite foe.

Part of one of Class I’s most memorable rivalries, Stillman, the Goffstown High varsity head coach recently retired after 20 years of leading the Grizzlies.

“Wake came on the scene from a playing background and not a coaching one,” said Forge, Somersworth skipper until 2002. “He was very competitive. Here he comes in, this new coach. And there’s a certain pecking-order among coaches, and I’d been there 12 years at that point. He came into each game with this fire like he’d just been called out on a called third strike.”

Taking over Goffstown’s program in 1987, Stillman’s rivalry with Forge began the next season when the Hilltoppers came out on top, 12-5, in the Class I championship. Goffstown took both regular-season meetings and found itself pitted against Forge’s squad in the 1989 finals, a game Goffstown lost, 10-9, leaving the tying run on third base.

Stillman led the Grizzlies to a Class I title in 1990, then followed it up with another in ’91. The Hilltoppers reclaimed the championship during the ’92 and ’93 seasons, forming the foundation for the mentors’ friendship.

Stillman went on to win another state title in 1997 before the Grizzlies moved to Class L in 2004.

Goffstown’s Bruce Rand served as Stillman’s assistant coach for 12 seasons, beginning in 1992. His favorite moments, he said, were watching as Stillman led the Grizzlies to a 35 game win-streak during the ’97-’98 seasons.

“His greatest strength was handling game situations,” said Rand, who now works with Stillman in Goffstown’s Babe Ruth baseball league. “You’d see him standing in the third-base box and say, ‘He’s the luckiest guy in the world.’ But after making the right call 50 times, you’d think, ‘OK. He knows what he’s doing.’”

Stillman’s two-decade career is the seventh-longest among Granite State softball coaches. His 278-123 record ranks him eighth in wins among all softball mentors.

While the championships, accolades and rankings are both well-earned and well-deserved, it’s the impact he’s left on his players that resonates loudest.

“I appreciated everything he did for us,” said Wendy Yianakopolos, a GHS player from 2000-’04. “Never mind as a player, but off the field he went out of his way to care about his players.”

Yianakopolos, who first met Stillman at age 6 when he coached her older sister, relied a lot on her previous mentor when she stepped in this year as the Grizzlies’ junior varsity coach.

Lauren Gifford, senior co-captain on this year’s team, agreed with Yianakopolos, saying Stillman’s constant encouragement and confidence in the squad are what she’ll remember about her mentor.

But Forge and Rand still take pleasure in reviving memories of their friend’s early years.

“He made his presence known to coaches and officials. The first couple years, we had this thing going that wasn’t about the game, more with psyche,” said Forge with a laugh. “He was in Somersworth and once questioned how far my mound was from home plate. In Goffstown, I did the same thing about his outfield fence. It had nothing to do with the game. It was kind of comical, when I look back and think about the things we’d do to get to each other. I can’t believe we acted like that.

“But I can say that I never lost to him in the tournament,” he continued. “He always got us in the season, but I can take beating him in the playoffs as a plus in my own career because not many coaches can say that. Twenty years … He did it, and he did it right.”