Beavers Battle for NAC Championship

Beavers Battle for NAC Championship

Leanna Farr Contributing Writer 

    For the second year in a row, the UMF women’s soccer team has made it to the North Atlantic Conference (NAC) championship game. The beavers won the NAC championship last year for the second time in program history. The championship win last season was unexpected after the beavers had a rough start to the season.

    McKenna Brodeur, junior psychology major, and leading goal scorer on the team with 52 career goals, said in an email interview “Winning the NAC was surreal. I think since it was so unexpected, it felt like a dream. There was so much energy in the air that day.” Brodeur comes from Oakland, Maine and is one of the key players in the offense. 

    On Nov. 10, the team made it to the championship game once again. “As a team, making it to the NAC championship again showed how much we have progressed. We were successful in areas that we have not been in the past,” Brodeur said “I knew how good we could be and how far we could make it. There is always pressure when you win one year and come back the next year. People do expect certain things to work out.”

    The sophomore returning player Adriana Novella, a community health major, said, “Just making it to the NAC final proved what type of team we are and how hard we fight for each other and what we want.” Novella plays center back and is a crucial part of the beavers’ defense. 

Women’s Soccer During Gameplay (Photo courtesy of Molly Wilkie)

    During the regular season players always have another game to do better, but post-season playoffs become so much more important. Brodeur said, “It’s win or go home. The energy is different.” 

    In the audience, the energy and atmosphere at the game was a level up with all the UMF students and parents yelling and cheering with airhorns every time they made a good play. The Maine Maritime Academy (MMA) men’s team, who were playing next, yelled and cheered for their women’s team before leaving at half time to prepare for their game. 

   When it comes to being a UMF beaver, “I have never been part of such a close-knit team before. Everyone has your back and wants what is best for you. We are best friends on and off the field,” Brodeur said. “Our goal was to make it back to the championship game, and although we hoped to win, just being there felt like a huge accomplishment.” 

    “This season we all truly embraced our vision of family over everything. We overcame a lot of things that we did not think we could at the beginning of the season,” Novella said. “Just making it to the NAC final proved what type of team we are and how we fight for each other and what we want.”

UMF Women’s Soccer Team Hosts Bone Marrow Registry Drive for USM Player

UMF Women’s Soccer Team Hosts Bone Marrow Registry Drive for USM Player

By Lakota Monzo, Contributing Writer 

UMF students help to find a match for USM soccer player Ally Little. (Photo Courtesy of Twitter)

UMF students help to find a match for USM soccer player Ally Little. (Photo Courtesy of Twitter)

The UMF Women’s soccer team hosted a successful Bone Marrow Registry drive in the Olsen Student Center last week to support USM soccer player Ally Little.

Little is a student at University of Southern Maine (USM) who has been diagnosed with Severe Aplastic Anemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. “We hope to find a match to our fellow soccer player, Ally,” said soccer team member Lydia Roy.

The UMF women’s soccer team plays USM during their non-conference season. “When we heard about Ally’s situation we wanted to help in any way that we could,” said soccer team member Sophie Manning. After hearing that USM’s drive went well, the team wanted to see if they could do the same at UMF.

“There’s a lot of prep work for this event,” said Roy. To get ready for the event the team promoted the drive during lunch hours, and also handed out flyers around campus.

“All of this preparation is time consuming,” said Roy, “and there is a lot of uncertainty involved.” She hopes that the end results will make everything worth it though.

One of the biggest hurdles the team faced was informing everyone how the drive actually works. “Many people hear the words bone marrow drive and they immediately think about huge needles being stuck in them,” said Manning, “this, however, is the old way, and is only really used for about 20% of the procedures nowadays.”

The process takes about ten to fifteen minutes, in which paperwork is filled out then the inside of the cheek is swabbed. After that the person becomes apart of the registry and has the chance to save a life if they match with someone.

“The team is hoping to get anywhere from 100 to 200 people to join the registry,” said Manning. Tallies following the drive confirm that the team met their goal with a total of 139 participants.

The soccer team was at the event all day helping out in any way they could and answering questions that had come up.

The biggest point the UMF women’s soccer team is trying to get across is for people to join the national registry. This will help people who need a bone marrow transplant to find their matches.

Anyone who missed the drive but is interested in joining the Bone Marrow Registry to potentially become a donor can visit bethematch.org for more information.