A new women’s soccer team looking to compete for national honors and help promote fitness and fun for future female footballers is just weeks away from its debut.

Maine Footy, which will play home games in Portland at Deering High’s Memorial Field, is an expansion team that will compete in the East Division of United Women’s Soccer, a national, high-level amateur league.

The league is designed to help fill the large gap between college and the professional National Women’s Soccer League. Maine Footy will have players who still have college eligibility, some who recently finished their college careers, and a few, like Tori Sousa, a 2015 graduate of Central Connecticut State, who are multi-year veterans of United Women’s Soccer.

“It’s a relatively high level,” said Sousa, who will turn 30 before the season opener and works as an engineer at Lockheed Martin. “We’re set up for really great success. I hope to bring some leadership.”

The 16-team East Division is by far the largest of the league’s six divisions, which include 44 teams in all.

Maine Footy’s 19-player roster features several players who played high school or college soccer in Maine. The team will also have a reserve squad of about eight players.

Fans can get their first look at Maine Footy – and its home and away uniforms – on Saturday, May 13, at an intrasquad scrimmage at Memorial Field, beginning at 5 p.m.

The eight-game regular season kicks off with a home match Sunday, May 21, at 7 p.m., against the New England Mutiny.

Its other three home games, all 7 p.m. starts at Memorial Field, are June 3 versus the Connecticut Rush; June 18 versus the Worcester Fuel, and July 1 versus the Boston Scorpions. Ticket prices for the regular-season games are $20; season tickets cost $50. The club already has sold over 500 specially designed T-shirts that serve as season tickets.

The roster was put together by Maine Footy General Manager Justin Van Til of Falmouth and board members Todd Sniper and Paul Baber. Sniper, the team’s director of football, is the former director of coaching for Soccer Maine. Baber founded Global Premier Soccer. Head coach Will Pike (also the men’s head coach at St. Joseph’s College in Standish) and assistant Sarah Ntifu (women’s head coach at UMaine-Augusta) are Maine Footy’s on-field coaches.

Maine Footy has assembled what appears to be a talented team.

Sousa and midfielder Kelly Quigley (University of New Haven, 2014-17) played the past two seasons for the Connecticut Fusion, helping that team reach the UWS championship game in 2021. While in college, Sousa also played for the New England Mutiny.

Goalie Kira Kutzinski, of Bünde, Germany, was the 2022 America East Goalie of the Year as a graduate student at the University of Maine.

The Footy also will have 2019-20 Varsity Maine Female Athlete of the Year Kristina Kelly of Lincolnville, who led Camden Hills to four Class A state championships and recently transferred to UMaine after being a two-time, first-team all-conference pick at Central Connecticut State. Gorham’s Maddie Michaud just completed her freshman season at UMaine, where she played in 14 games. There is also excitement about 5-foot-10 striker Addison Larsen, who started 10 games as a freshman last fall for NCAA Division I Southern Utah University, and forward Anna Hurley of Wakefield, Massachusetts, a four-star recruit at Phillips Academy who appeared in six games as a freshman at Oklahoma State in 2021 and eight games for Hofstra last season.

Eryn Doiron, 24, set all-time goal-scoring records at Mt. Blue High in Farmington and then at Maine Maritime, where she was the North Atlantic Conference Player of the Year in 2019. She’s now an assistant coach at Colby College.

“I just love playing. I’ve had a really hard time giving up the game,” Doiron said.

Other players with Maine connections are current University of Maine-Farmington forward Audrey Fletcher, who scored 111 goals at Monmouth Academy; Tyler Spence of Falmouth, a four-year player at Slippery Rock University from 2016-19; Alexis Elowitch, a Deering High standout and four-year starting defender at St. Anselm College from 2014-17; midfielder Alyanna Beaudoin of Saco (Thornton Academy), who will be a senior at St. Anselm after missing the 2022 season because of an injury; and Emma Dennison of South Portland, who played three seasons at Southern Maine (2014-15 and 2018).

Players in United Women’s Soccer are not paid, but the league has standards to make sure teams are run in a professional manner, Van Til said, including providing medical services at games and livestreams of the action.

Maine Footy also has established a working relationship with Gotham FC, a member of the pro National Women’s Soccer League. On June 23, the club has scheduled a day-long Pathway to Pro Soccer and Mentorship Camp, with Gotham FC players expected to be in attendance.

Doiron said she thinks many of her teammates see Maine Footy as a pathway to the professional ranks, be it in the United States or overseas.

“One hundred percent. I don’t think that’s out of the question at all. It’s definitely in the back of my mind,” Doiron said.

Elowitch, who is also the director of team operations, agreed.

“Hopefully a couple of girls advance to the professional ranks,” Elowitch said. “Our end goal of course is to win the title. That would be amazing. But if we can get players from our team to go pro, that’s one of our goals.”

Promoting good physical and mental health through off-field activities targeted toward young female soccer players is another key part of Maine Footy’s foundational platform.

Maine Footy already has held online seminars and in-person workshops focused on mental skills and nutrition and is intent on offering year-round wellness-based programming.

“It’s the enrichment programs that I think are incredible,” Elowitch said.

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