After five years of coaching the Cony of Augusta softball team, including three years of coaching his daughter on the team, Paul Rodrigue had a tough time making the decision to leave his position.

But Rodrigue will take over a program that he can build on his own as the coach of the University of Maine-Augusta’s new softball program.

“We were only going to lose one senior this year so it was a hard decision,” he said. “But I’ll be close enough so that I can keep my eye on them.”

UM-Augusta will begin play in the Yankee Small College Athletic Association and the National Small College Athletic Association next spring. Rodrigue is still working on the schedule but most of the teams the Rebels will face come from Massachusetts and New Hampshire. He also wants to schedule games against Colby College and Thomas College in Watervlle and UMaine-Farmington.

Last summer, Rodrigue said, he approached UM-Augusta about starting a team and both athletic director Ian Mckinnon and president Owen Cargol were receptive to the idea. The school has already started constructing a field on the campus.

Rodrigue said the UMA team is an indication of softball’s growing popularity.

“I’ve been to a lot of tournaments out of the state and I think Maine kids are slowly starting to catch up to those kids,” he said. “The competition is getting better and I think Saturday night [the first East-West Senior All-Star Classic] was a good example of where the sport is going.”

Rodrigue will be able to pull players from all of the three UMA campuses, which are located in Bangor, Augusta and Lewiston.

Among the players who have expressed an interest in playing on the new team are infielder Melissa Wallace, who graduated from Morse of Bath this year and was a Maine High School Coaches Association Senior All-Star and Holly Stevens, who pitched two years for St. Joseph’s in Standish and holds the Monks’ record for earned run average (1.01).

“Holly will be a real shot in the arm for us, no doubt,” Rodrigue said.

Rodrigue took over the Cony program in 1995 and the Rams made the playoffs each season.

Diving decision to be debated

Members of the Maine Principals’ Association Swim Committee met Monday in Augusta to discuss the logistics and ramifications of the MPA’s recent vote to separate diving from swimming at the state championships.

At state meets in previous years, divers completed nine of their required 12 dives during the break between the preliminary swimming heats and the final heats and performed their final three dives during the evening swimming finals. The diving points were also counted in the teams’ overall point totals.

Committee chair Jack Hardy said unless the MPA votes to reverse the separation before the state championship meets in February 2000, all 12 dives will be held in the intermission and a separate diving championship will be awarded. Diving points will not be included in point totals with swimming events.

Hardy said dual meets during the regular season, however, will be conducted according to the rules of the different leagues.

Hardy, who is also the Greely High of Cumberland Center athletic director, said the committee, which had submitted a report to the MPA that called for keeping swimming and diving together, was “disappointed” by the vote.

“We’re frustrated that our point of view wasn’t heard,” he said. “But we’re glad that we’ll have another opportunity.”

That opportunity to reunite the two sports will come at a general MPA meeting Nov. 18, when Hardy will represent the committee and make a presentation in favor of putting the two sports back together in hopes of another general vote.

The vote to separate diving from swimming was taken last April at the spring meeting of the MPA’s general body. All of the 55 member schools present at the meeting voted in favor of the separation. There are a total of 151 MPA member schools, 49 of which have swimming.