CASTINE — Maine Maritime Academy has already given Matt Gagin so much.

“I’ve always really wanted to sail. I’ve crossed the Atlantic five or six times now. I’ve been all over the world,” said Gagin, a junior from Upton, Massachusetts. “I’ve gotten to see things I never would’ve seen without this school.”

There’s one thing Gagin would love to give back to MMA before he graduates: a win in a football game. The Mariners came so close to that goal Saturday at Ritchie Field, falling 17-14 to New England College. It was MMA’s closest game since the school announced the program was coming out of mothballs in 2023.

Close isn’t a win, though, and now the Mariners’ losing streak stands at 43 games.

MMA’s last win came on Oct. 14, 2017, just over nine years ago, when the Mariners prevailed 34-16 against Coast Guard. On its face, the victory drought is misleading. The Mariners did not play from 2020 through 2022, then played one game in 2023 and three in 2024 before resuming a full varsity schedule last season.

Maine Maritime paused the football program in 2020, citing the budget concerns that came with the COVID-19 pandemic. A few years later, alumni spearheaded a fundraising effort that brought in more than $560,000, and football was reinstated.

The Mariners are past the point of moral victories. New England College is like them, a new program just starting out. The Mariners saw the contest Saturday as a winnable game, and left the field with the frustration of a team that let one slip away. Heads down. Shoulders slumped.

An interception inside the Pilgrims 5-yard line squashed one scoring opportunity. A blocked field goal at the end of the first half evaporated another.

The Mariners know they’re improving, and sooner or later that improvement won’t be measured in a good play, or a good drive. It will be quantified with a win.

“They see (the improvement), and know,” said MMA coach Nick Sheehan. “You can see from our reaction, it’s a tough one.”

Sheehan’s sales pitch to recruits is simple. Come build something at one of the finest engineering schools around. Come to a school where graduates routinely step into six-figure jobs right after earning their diploma, and help rebuild a once-proud and thriving football program. Play right away.

That all sounded great to Gagin. Newcastle native Lucas Houghton thought it sounded good, too. He went to Lincoln Academy, a school without a football team, but he remembered the joy he had playing peewee football, and thought rebuilding something sounded fun.

“It was the best sport, because as long as you gave your best effort, you could feel like you accomplished something,” said Houghton, a junior defensive back who led the Mariners with 12 tackles Saturday. “I’ve played all kinds of sports. Soccer, baseball, basketball, whatever. There’s nothing that compares to football.”

Bill Mottola knows what MMA football can be, because he knows what it was.

MMA’s athletic director, Mottola grew up around the team. His father, also Bill Mottola, was MMA’s head coach from 1968 to 1978 and was AD for 25 years after that. Bill the younger grew up on the sidelines of Mariners games, going to team dinners, working as a ball boy, and seeing the way his father built relationships with his players.

It led Mottola into the football coaching, and he spent time at Division I schools Kent State, Miami (Ohio) and Army. The athletic director at MMA since 2024, Mottola views the football program’s pursuit of a victory as a personal quest.

“It will be sooner rather than later. We’re making progress,” Mottola said. “I’ve seen football players. I know what they’re supposed to look like, and I know what the game is supposed to look like.”

What he sees on the field now is a team making strides, Mottola said. Anonymous trolls on social media who see the lopsided scores of many games and mock the team, who look at the losing streak without context, don’t see below the surface. They don’t see what’s being built, he said.

The players see that a bond has formed, and it’s tight.

“No team in the country has been through what we’ve been through the last three years. I just want to keep fighting for these guys,” said Gagin, a linebacker who made 10 tackles on Saturday.

One play at time, one game at a time, Sheehan said. You create the bigger picture by focusing on the little ones.

“In 10 years, when I look back and the program is winning games and being successful, hopefully I’ll be proud of everything we accomplished,” Houghton said.

The Mariners’ next chance for a win comes next Saturday, at home against Endicott.