The Ellsworth freshman girls basketball team played its first game on Tuesday night and lost 61-25 to John Bapst. But the existence of the squad, which was started at the high school this year, shows the number of Maine school-age girls who are interested in basketball jibes with numbers from a recently released study that found an increase in basketball participation by girls and women over the past decade.

The study by the American Basketball Council found that basketball participation by girls and women reached an all-time high of 14.1 million participants in 1996. The ABC has tracked play annually since 1987.

The first study in 1987 found a total of 35.7 million participants. The 1996 figure, 45.6 million, represents a total gain of 28 percent.

Over the study period, participation by both males and females has also increased by 28 percent. But in the last two years, female participation has climbed while male participation has slipped.

At Ellsworth, athletic director Dan Higgins said the school started the team as the number of girls trying out for the junior varsity and varsity has increased over the past two years.

Last year, more freshmen tried out than were expected. When the school found that the number of eighth-grade girls in Ellsworth-area schools who were interested in basketball was also on the rise, Higgins looked into starting a team.

“In the three years I’ve been here, at first we never had the numbers,” Higgins said. “In the past two years, that has changed, and this year we budgeted for the team.”

Most of the other Class B schools have freshman teams and Higgins has put together a 15-game schedule which includes some Western Maine Class B teams such as Lincoln Academy of Newcastle along with Class A Brewer, which the freshman boys were already scheduled to play.

Girls varsity coach Matt Clark said the freshman squad will help his team down the road.

“[The freshman team] will generate more interest from the kids who don’t feel good enough about themselves as players,” Clark said. “Now the kids on the border of playing might think, `Hey, they’ve got three teams, I’m good enough to play.’

“Also, a lot of freshmen get stuck on junior varsity teams with sophomores and juniors. Now we can put them where they belong.”

John Nash, who has coached at John Bapst, is skippering the freshman team.

Maine basketball coaches spent Saturday evening working off turkey dinners and raising money for diabetes research and education at the Basketball Challenge at Cony High School of Augusta.

Coaches from around the state, including the event’s organizer and Cony varsity girls coach Paul Vachon, each shot 200 free throws during halftime of an exhibition game between the Rams and Central High School of Manchester, N.H. Before the game, teams represented by coaches in the Challenge collected pledges for each shot made.

Vachon has until Dec. 29 to calculate the total amount of money raised to allow for more donations, but his 114 free throws, at $6 pledged for each shot he made, totals $684.

“I’m sure that there are other coaches out there who can shoot better,” Vachon said. “But it was a lot of fun.”

The team that raises the most money wins a free trip to Sugarloaf and the coach who shot the most free throws gets a $250 gift certificate to L.L. Bean.

Vachon became interested in diabetes two years ago when a student wrote a research paper about her mother’s struggle with the disease. When Joanne Bean, the executive director of Maine’s chapter of the American Diabetes Association, approached the Maine Association of Basketball Coaches about a fund-raiser, Vachon said he wanted to help.

“I saw that it was a good cause and that we should do something,” he said.

According to the ADA, there are 33,000 adults in Maine with diabetes.