Auburn, ME - Head Women's Soccer Coach, Rob Rodriguez, is excited to announce the squads 2018 game schedule. Coach Rodriguez, entering his fourth year with the Mustangs, commented, "Our Yankee Conference is extremely competitive on the women's side. Last year, the second, third, and forth place teams all finished with a 4-2-1 conference record, and we just missed the playoffs, finishing fifth with a 4-3 YSCC record, with 6-5 record overall. The playoffs are definitely in our sights, but we will have to overcome some challenges in the schedule to reach them."
The Mustangs will begin on August 23 with a pre-season jamboree in Concord, New Hampshire, hosted by conference opponent NHTI, in which Central Maine will play three short games against Thomas College, New England College, and Plymouth State University, all NCAA Division III teams. The season then begins with a bang with their first six games, all being conference matchups, four of them on the road.
In what has become a Mustang tradition the last few years, their regular season will open up with a conference game on the road at the perennial YSCC contender, the University of Maine Machias on Friday August 31st. Conference play will continue the following weekend with a road trip to Randolph, VT to play the Vermont Tech Knights in an afternoon contest on Saturday, September 8th. Just a few days later as the Mustangs take on their rivals, at Southern Maine Community College in South Portland on Tuesday, September 11th at 4 pm. Central Maine then gets on the bus again for the fourth time in a row traveling to Amherst, MA to play a conference game against Hampshire College on Saturday, September 15.
The road-weary Mustangs will finally have their home opener on Sunday, September 16th with Paul Smiths College (NY) making the trek east to come to Maine in another Yankee Conference matchup. The Unity College Rams then come to town on Tuesday, September 18th for a conference game, the second home game of the season for the Mustangs.
On Friday, September 21, the Mustangs hit the road again, this time traveling to Rhode Island to play CCRI, in a non-conference game, the first time these two teams will have met in women's soccer. The following day, on Saturday, September 22, Central Maine will play their final conference game, hosting the 2017 Yankee Conference Champions, the NHTI Lynx in a home game at noon.
After a little bit of a break, the Mustangs will travel to Orono on Friday, September 28 to play the UMaine Black Bears Women's Soccer Club team, another new opponent for Central Maine. The following weekend will see the Mustangs traveling again in back to back non-conference road games at Unity College on Friday, October 5 and then again to Amherst, MA to play Hampshire College on Saturday, October 6th.
Home games on the next two Wednesdays, October 10th against the University of Maine Machias and October 17th against Southern Maine Community College, followed by a second trip to Orono to play the UMaine Black Bears Club on Friday, October 19th will complete the regular season.
Coach Rodriguez added, "This is a very aggressive schedule with almost twice as many road games as home games, and all of our conference games loaded into the front part of the schedule, so there is no room for error in September. But I love a challenge and I have no problem with a difficult schedule, it makes the season more exciting when we have a lot of hurdles to overcome."
For the full Women's Soccer schedule, visit: http://www.cmmustangs.com/sports/wsoc/2018-19/schedule