When third-string goalkeeper Elise Applegate met with University of Maine women’s soccer coach Scott Atherley at the conclusion of last season, she told him she needed some scholarship money in order to return for her senior year.
“If I didn’t get any money, it would have put a big financial strain on me and my family. I was going to have to get a job. So I wouldn’t have been able to play. He said he wished he could help me but he couldn’t,” said Applegate.
The Lewiston native and former St. Dominic of Auburn star hung up her cleats and came to the realization that her career was over.
“It hits you kind of hard. I wasn’t going to be doing something I’d done for 19 years of my life,” said the 22-year-old Applegate. “It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make. I love the sport.”
She got a job at the university’s recreation center as a personal trainer and she also worked with special needs children. In addition, she taught goalkeeping techniques to youngsters.
Then fate intervened.
Sophomore Claudia Dube-Trempe suffered an injury against Fairfield on Aug. 29 as junior Lauren Swant battled injuries stemming from overcompensating after undergoing two knee surgeries.
That left the team without a healthy goalkeeper with games upcoming against Holy Cross and a Northeastern University team that played in the NCAA tournament a year ago.
The desperate Atherley reached out to Applegate and she said he offered a scholarship for the first semester.
She checked with her bosses at the recreation center and they gave their blessing and told her that her job would be waiting for her after the season.
So she has returned to the team for the rest of the season and, after just three practices, she took the field and made nine saves in a 1-0 setback against Holy Cross. She came up with seven more saves in a 4-0 loss to Northeastern.
Applegate knows she will be relegated to a backup role when Dube-Trempe or Swant return.
“Right now the team has a leak in the boat and my finger is in the hole,” she said. “I’m just going to work my butt off.”
Atherley said she has been exceptional, especially under the circumstances.
“She has given us everything imaginable. We’re grateful,” said Atherley.
In her three previous years at Maine, Applegate had played a total of 8 minutes, 49 seconds in a mop-up role after Swant suffered a knee injury.
Applegate says she is in the best shape of her life because she had been lifting weights 2½ hours a day, four days a week.
But she wondered if would it translate to being in soccer shape.
“I was really worried on the first day of practice. It was a shooting practice. I didn’t know if I would be slower. But it wasn’t bad. I was winded. I felt like I had been in a train wreck. But I was quicker and stronger than I’d ever been,” said Applegate, who admitted that kicking the ball was problematic because she hadn’t kicked a ball in 10 months.
The 5-foot-8 Applegate said after she made her first save against Holy Cross, “everything came naturally” and she was pleased with her performance.
Against Northeastern, the Black Bears felt the effects of having five regulars, including three midfielders, sidelined by injuries and another starting midfielder taking the season off for personal issues.
“Our girls were unreal. They did everything they could. You had girls out there playing positions they had never played before. They worked their butts off,” Applegate said.
Applegate had been a striker until she was 12 when her youth coach told her she was going to be the goalie “because our starting goalie had food poisoning and I was the tallest player on the team.”