Success, style of play draws fans to UM games> Black Bears enjoy enthusiastic support

ORONO — Sitting on his dad’s knee, 8-year-old Nathan Jacobs intensely watches the University of Maine women’s basketball team roll past Northeastern in the Black Bears final regular season contest.

“I love Maine,” says the youngster as he observes the no-look passes of sophomore guard Cindy Blodgett and the successful hook shoots by junior center Stacey Porrini. “This is a great show. This is great play,” he adds.

The Hampden boy is certainly not alone in his enthusiasm for the Black Bears. Fans have been crowding the Alfond Arena in Orono all season to see the UM women show their skills on the court. The final game of the regular season drew 5,663 people to the Alfond and set a basketball attendance record for the arena.

“Everybody likes a winner,” says Roger Chandler of Orono. The 62-year-old fan of the Black Bears says the squad’s 18-0 record in North Atlantic Conference play is the main reason for the team’s number of followers.

Some fans, however, see other factors attributing to the support for the UM team.

“There’s a lot of local girls,” says Bruce Barber, a season ticket holder for the team’s games. Barber, of Orono, says Mainers enjoy watching some of the familiar, home-grown players on the women’s squad.

“We like the teamwork that they display,” adds Barber as he and his wife make a quick trip to the concession stand before tip-off in the matchup against Northeastern. Barber says it is the combination of coaching, talent and teamwork that has made the UM women so successful this season.

“Teamwork” is also what a group of girls from the Dover-Foxcroft area admire in the Black Bears’ style of play. Wearing their maroon SeDoMoCha basketball jackets, about 20 members of this junior high squad regularly attend the UM women’s games to enjoy the games and to learn from them.

“I like watching the different plays they do,” says Brooke Hartford, a 13-year-old point guard for the SeDoMoCha girls basketball team.

Many of the girls on this junior high team have also worked with members of the UM women’s squad at basketball camps and are quick to mention the names Steph Guidi and Stacia Rustad when asked to name some of their favorite basketball players.

Chad Cukierski, a junior business major at the Orono campus, has been to about five UM women’s basketball games this season and adds he has noticed a dramatic change in attendance at the games during his years at the university.

“I remember coming here my freshman year and they could barely fill the seats,” says the 20-year-old student from Castine.

With the Alfond crowd’s response to the action on the court, to the sounds of the UM band, to the rally cries by the UM cheerleaders and even to the antics of the university’s mascot “Bananas,” Cukierski says the main reason he enjoys attending the UM women’s games is “the whole atmosphere.”

When asked how he expects the Black Bears to do in this year’s NAC tourney, Cukierski simply says with a confident grin: “They’ll take it.”

Following Maine’s victory over Northeastern, Sheldon Dickinson of Glenburn and a few of his friends were already looking forward to to seeing the UM women play in the NAC tourney.

“We’re going to go buy tickets,” an excited Dickinson says in passing.