`State of Maine Showcase’ today

The University of Maine women’s soccer team plays its final game of the season Thursday at 2 p.m. with the University of Southern Maine in Gorham.

First-year Maine coach Diane Boettcher bills the game as a “State of Maine Showcase.”

She has invited a number of coaches from the southern part of the state to bring their players to USM.

“This game showcases a lot of Maine talent,” she said, “and it may be an infrequent thing for us to play other teams in the state.”

Boettcher is referring to the fact that, as the only Division I team in the state, Maine will pretty much stick to a Division I schedule from here on.

Both USM and Maine enter the contest at 4-10-1 overall, but Maine is undefeated in two years of in-state play at 10-0.

“We’re looking to finish our season at 5-10-1,” Boettcher said. “We’re going into this game very well prepared, because we’ve been tested in Division I for so long now. But we do know USM is loaded with Maine talent.”

UMaine’s three seniors – Tiffany Mosher, Lisa Couture, and Jen Wadman – will start their final game, but, unfortunately, the Black Bears will be without leading scorer, freshman Jen Farina, who is out with a red card.

“We’ve just come off a rough weekend. We ran into some difficulties,” Boettcher admitted. “Guiding this ship has been a very interesting experience so far. We are building, and in that there is frustration. Jen’s was not the only red card this year, and that’s just indicative of the level of frustration. We saw some very, very good teams. We know there will be those frustrations. That’s a part of the building process – learning what Division I soccer is like.

“I’m fortunate, because I’m one up on the players, having been at the Division I level. There are some hard lessons to learn, but the players are moving ahead. We’re looking forward to this game, and to the future.”

Boettcher said Maine saw quite a disparity between its level and that of other Maine competition. “We’re in that confusing situation where we get whacked out of state and are pretty successful in state,” she said. “Out of state, we got buried early. But Delaware better watch out next year.”

Maine is in its first year in the North Atlantic Conference, and won’t make the tournament. “You have to keep in mind, in the rest of NAC, are top 20 teams,” she said of Hartford, New Hampshire and Vermont. “Then there’s Maine and Delaware, and we’re quite competitive with Delaware.”

Boettcher will juggle Thursday’s lineup with Rhonda Pelkey stepping in at forward/striker and Christina Contardo moving into Farina’s center midfield position. Nicole Ricci will start in goal.

“It’s been a great learning season for me, and for the players,” Boettcher said. “The women are building a Division I mentality.

“We still have some organizational things to do to ensure that we move forward as quickly as possible to be competitive in Division I. We have to recruit, build a style of play that’s more condusive to what we’re seeing out of state, and get a little better perception of what Division I soccer is all about.”

To that end, Boettcher plans to recruit aggressively outside Maine and, in state, to conduct week-long camps at three locations to introduce the Division I game to high school players.

“Division I is a whole new ballgame,” she said. “I’m going to hold camps in the northern, central and southern parts of the state, and get kids working with collegiate players to see what it’s all about.”

Her focus, Boettcher said, will be “to outreach; to get this show on the road. The camp at Maine is good; but my focus will be to go to the kids.”