Waterville High has found another former University of Maine star to coach its girls basketball team, while Central Aroostook has hired a replacement for that ex-Black Bear.

Waterville has tabbed former Central Aroostook coach Julie Bradstreet to coach its girls squad. Craig McFarlane has been hired to replace Bradstreet at the Mars Hill school.

Bradstreet coached the Central Aroostook girls for nine years.

“We’re very happy to have someone with her level of basketball experience,” said Waterville athletic director Doug Frame. “We’ve had a lot of transition in the program in the past few years and so we’re looking for some stability and we hope she’ll be here with us for a while.”

Bradstreet replaces Amy Vachon, the former Cony of Augusta and UMaine standout, who was at Waterville for one year.

Bradstreet is teaching kindergarten at the James H. Bean School, which is in the Messalonskee of Oakland school system.

She was named the Class D girls Coach of the Year by the Maine Association of Basketball Coaches in 1993, the same year she led the Panthers to the Class D Eastern Maine title.

Central Aroostook, which went to the Class D tournament every year Bradstreet coached except for 1994, lost in the quarterfinals of the 2001 tournament to eventual state champ Woodland.

Central Aroostook athletic director Joe Shaw said he’s confident McFarlane, a 27-year-old Presque Isle High graduate and current UM-Presque Isle student, will continue the school’s success on the basketball court.

“He’s got a lot of fine basketball players coming back,” Shaw said. “I know how aggressive he is. He’ll get to know the program.”

McFarlane was the Easton boys junior varsity coach last season and has coached at the junior varsity and junior high school levels.

Raiders keeping their heads up

The Washington Academy girls soccer team hasn’t won a game this season, but with only 10 or 11 players (depending on the day), coach Adam Grant is just happy to get a squad on the field.

“We’re not really walking yet, but we’re crawling,” he said. “More than half of this team never played soccer, so I find myself just teaching skills. The main thing is just getting the girls out there.”

Grant, a 1995 WA graduate who teaches physical education at the school, took over the team two weeks before the start of school and with one experienced soccer player in Amy Dowley, the daughter of Raiders athletic director Dave Dowley. Most of the players from last year’s team had decided to play volleyball, or work, or had graduated.

Slowly, Grant said, girls started to come out for the team, including senior goalie Emily Mawhinney (she had given up soccer for an after-school job). She’s the only senior on a team of very inexperienced freshmen and sophomores.

Andrea Govoni, a volleyball player who has played soccer in the past, joins up with the team when she doesn’t have volleyball, and that has helped with numbers – and confidence.

The Raiders aren’t focusing on wins or losses. Instead, Grant is starting with basic soccer skills and rules. He hopes to start a soccer program at the grammar-school level.

“That’s where it all starts,” Grant said.

Foxcroft trying out night soccer

In its inaugural season, Foxcroft Academy’s new football field is benefiting the Ponies’ soccer teams, too.

The squads have each decided to play one game this season under the lights of the field. The boys played their game Sept. 17 against John Bapst of Bangor and the girls will face Dexter Oct. 1 in a 6:30 p.m. game.

“We’re trying to feature the other teams once this year,” Foxcroft athletic director Dave Clement said. “It may be something we do more of.”

The Ponies have discovered a drawback to playing under the lights – the dew that collects on the grass at dusk makes the field more slippery.

Clement said attendance for the boys game was up a little because students who had finished with their after-school activities were able to watch the soccer game.

Clement offered a night game to the field hockey team, which declined because of differences in the field (the grass on the football field is a little longer than the other fields).

Wentworth resigns Ponies post

Foxcroft baseball coach Al Wentworth has resigned after one season, Dave Clement said.

Wentworth, who has served in numerous freshman, junior varsity, assistant and head coaching posts over the past 20 years, wants to dedicate more time to his business. Wentworth publishes the monthly Maine Big Game Magazine.

“He does a great job with it and it’s kept him busy,” Clement said. “Now that his son [Kyle Wentworth] has graduated, I think he wants to spend more time on the magazine.”

Wentworth coached Foxcroft’s varsity boys basketball team in the 1999-2000 season.

Dragons continue win streak

The defending state volleyball champions seem to be rolling toward another title.

The Woodland High squad won matches last week against Cony of Augusta, Machias, Lubec, and Washington Academy of East Machias to continue a 25-match winning streak. The Dragons, now 9-0, were ranked No. 1 in last week’s Heal Point standings.