10 Maine Mainiacs `clicked’ right away

One of the nicest things that can happen to a group of kids with shared interests and goals who meet for the first time is to discover that they “click.”

The Maine Mainiacs, the 13-and-under girls AAU Junior Olympic basketball team, made just that discovery when they met to practice for the AAU state championship.

“They got all excited the first time they played,” Coach Steve Gardner of Orono said of the 10 girls from nine different towns.

“They realized that they `click’ as a group. It’s a total team effort. All 10 players contribute. They really knew it when they won the state championship.”

The Mainiacs won the eight-team, 13-and-under state AAU tournament two weeks ago at Bates College in Lewiston. That win qualified the team for the national AAU tournament July 9-18 in Kenner, La.

Members of the Mainiacs are Katie Clark, Bangor; Kelly Dow and Hollie Tapley, Calais; Kelley Emerson, Old Town; Jennifer Freese, Veazie; Susan Gardner, Orono; Lynn Hersey, Dexter; Wendy Ivey, Hodgdon; Jaime Nye, Corinna; and Chelsey Rider, Greenville. Andy Freese of Veazie coaches the team with Gardner.

Eight of the girls are eighth-graders, and each played basketball for her respective junior high school team. Tapley is the only seventh-grader, and Gardner the only sixth-grader. Hersey, Tapley, Gardner, Freese, and Emerson are guards, and the other five play forward.

Meeting competition outside Maine is important to the team’s training, so the Mainiacs will travel to New Hampshire this coming weekend to compete in the Peterborough Tournament, an AAU-sanctioned event that will draw teams from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts. One advantage to traveling to New Hampshire, Gardner said, is the play will be indicative of the level of basketball the girls will face when they get to the nationals. Ibasketball the girls will face when they get to the nationals. In mid-June, the Mainiacs will compete in a tournament in southern Maine.

Of course, all this means a lot of hard work for the kids and coaches, and the parents, who transport them to practices and tournaments. But the work doesn’t stop there, since everyone involved will be working hard between now and July to help defray the expense of the trip to Louisiana.

“We’ll be fund raising,” Gardner said, “and we’ll probably have some raffles and be soliciting donations. The kids provide their own uniforms and the parents are transporting them to the `local’ tournaments, but we will need help going to the nationals.”

Individuals wishing to donate to the Mainiacs may write Gardner at 5 Summer Street, Orono, 04473.

“Working with this group is a lot of fun,” Gardner said. “The kids are having a very good time with it. It’s so nice to see, because they all get along so well.”