UMFK Bengals roar into NAIA national ranks

The University of Maine-Fort Kent men’s soccer team is off to an impressive 10-0 start this season.

And people are beginning to take notice.

Coach Bill Ashby’s Bengals achieved a program milestone Wednesday when they appeared in the NAIA men’s soccer top 25 rankings for the first time.

UMFK is ranked 23rd in the country with 34 points and is the only Northeast representative in the sampling. The Bengals are ranked No. 1 this week in NAIA Region X.

“We’re extremely happy up here in Fort Kent,” said Ashby, who is in his second season guiding the program. “It’s the first time ever, that anybody knows of, that the soccer team’s been ranked in the top 25 in the country.”

Ashby pointed out there are 209 teams competing in the NAIA. The Northeast region has only a handful of those, which can make it harder to get noticed.

“It is [harder] because most of the power in the NAIA is in the South and the Midwest,” Ashby explained.

UMFK, which heads the Sunrise Conference with a 6-0 mark, also is making a name for itself in a handful of statistical categories.

The Bengals lead the nation with 5.9 assists per game and 19.4 shots on goal per contest. They also rank second with six shutouts on the season and in scoring with 5.4 goals per game.

“I try to build my teams to play attacking soccer and we’re able to get some good guys here who can score and some other good players that can set them up,” Ashby said.

Andre Anderson has set the pace in individual categories. The freshman from Manchester, Jamaica, is the top scorer in NAIA with 1.78 goals and 4.56 points per outing. His 3.56 shots-on-goal average ranks second in the country.

Anderson has already registered 13 goals and seven assists.

UMFK’s Emlyn Jacoby, of Johannesburg, South Africa, ranks first in assists per game with 1.5. He has 11 assists this season to go with three goals.

The Bengals’ other offensive leader is Dwayne Smith of St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, who has tallied eight goals and three assists.

Goalkeeper Derrick Plourde has accounted for all six UMFK shutouts this season. He had five in 2006, when Ashby directed the Bengals to a 13-3 record, the Sunrise Conference championship, the Region X title and a semifinal berth in the Region IX playoffs.

Ashby likes the chemistry his team has displayed thus far.

“It’s a good mixture of local kids, international and out-of-state kids,” he said. “It’s a great mix. It’s tough to put 25 men together and have them all like each other.”