University of Maine freshman Carrie Green’s goal this season was to make the America East softball championship in Newark, Del. Not because UMaine has its best team in five years or because its seniors have more postseason experience than the rest of the team combined. But because Green is from Delaware.

“It’s good to go home. I’ve played field hockey [at the University of Delaware], but never softball,” Green said. “But I’ll probably know the umpires.”

The fact UMaine’s top pitcher is a former Delaware high school star will be a good omen for the No. 3 Bears, who will face No. 2 Delaware in the first game of the conference tournament Friday.

Not only does Delaware have home-field advantage, it came from nowhere to make the tournament by sweeping No. 1 Hofstra and beating UMaine twice on Sunday.

“Delaware is on an amazing high right now,” UMaine coach Janet Anderson said. “It’s great to have home-field advantage. Nobody knows that more than us. [But] we’re on the road so much, it’s an advantage to us. We’re road warriors.”

Anderson isn’t worried about UMaine playing in hostile territory because she expects as many as 26 Black Bear fans to show – not including Green’s support team.

“When we played Drexel, I had 20 fans there. And that was in Philadelphia,” said Green, who is ranked eigth in the league in pitching with a 2.18 ERA.

What is a concern to Anderson is how well the Bears can maintain their intensity. Delaware has won eight of its last nine games and is the only team other than UMaine to beat Hofstra, now ranked sixth in the nation.

Green said the best time to knock down a team is when it has achieved the unexpected.

“It will be hard for Delaware. It’s hard to beat a team three times,” Green said.

Since the America East champion will play host to the Atlantic 10 winner in an NCAA play-in series, the Bears could gain home-field advantage in the postseason were they to win the AE tournament.

UMaine, which made the NCAAs in 1994, has hosted two ECAC tournaments, but never an NCAA game. The play-in series alternates between an Atlantic 10 site and an AE site each year.