Former Hermon High School field hockey coach Mary Martha Collins served as the Northern League statistician this year.

In that position, working with teams in the Penobscot Valley Conference and the Penquis League, she did a lot of traveling, and saw a number of field hockey games.

She was impressed with what she saw.

“First of all,” she said, “I was impressed with the sheer number of girls who are involved in field hockey in northern Maine. We have 445 players in this area alone.”

In the PVC, Class C Orono has the fewest team members with 30, and Class A Brewer the most at 42.

The average team size for schools in the PVC – Bangor, Brewer, Hampden, Hermon, Nokomis of Newport, Old Town and Orono – is 35.

In the Penquis League, Central of East Corinth and Stearns of Millinocket have the most players with 32 each, while Mattanawcook of Lincoln has the smallest team with 23.

The average number of players on those teams plus Dexter, Foxcroft Academy of Dover-Foxcroft, Maine Central Institue of Pittsfield and Piscataquis of Guilford, is 29.

Collins believes those numbers “are a sign of the really strong health of field hockey. It looks to me like the sport is just cruising along,” she said.

But, more impressive to this keen-eyed observer, is the quality of play she’s seeing.

“The level of field hockey is so good now,” she said. “The kids are just much more skilled.

“We’re seeing a lot of different strategies on the field than we used to see. We’re seeing different formations, and increased scoring. The sport is just going great guns.”

Collins also thinks the improvement directly ties into college field hockey, especially the University of Maine team.

“When you go to a Maine game and see that the majority of the players who are doing so well are from Maine, you know the quality level, as a whole, is just getting to be superb,” she said. “It has been evident all season long.”

In the combined Northern League, Angie Wilber from Nokomis of Newport was the top scorer for the 1991 regular season with 22 goals. Shelly Tyrrell of Orono led the assist department with eight, and Jen Michaud of Foxcroft Academy in Dover-Foxcroft, who played just half of each game, was the league’s top goalie with an 88.2 save percentage.