If the Houlton High School girls soccer team hopes to make another run at an Eastern Maine Class C championship, it appears as though it will be without Kolleen Bouchard.
Bouchard, a second-team Bangor Daily News All-Maine Schoolgirl basketball selection as a freshman last winter, is suffering from a bone ailment in her left ankle called osteochondritis dissecans of the talus.
She will be wearing a protective boot for at least six more weeks, according to her father, Marty Bouchard. She has already been wearing the boot for a week.
“Part of her ankle bone isn’t as dense as it should be,” said Bouchard, the principal at Houlton High School. “So she has to sit out until the bone regenerates in order to prevent it from chipping.”
He said she has seen doctors in Houlton and Portland, and they are working together on her care.
Kolleen Bouchard isn’t in any pain, but her father said she is devastated about being sidelined.
“She has shed a lot of tears. She loves her teammates and the team,” Marty Bouchard said.
The Shiretowners took a 4-1 mark into Wednesday night’s game against defending Eastern Maine titlist Fort Kent. The Warriors beat Houlton 1-0 in penalty kicks in last year’s regional final.
Bouchard said his daughter will visit the doctor in three weeks to have her condition re-evaluated.
“She has been cleared to begin upper body workouts, and she has been working hard to improve herself,” he said.
She felt pain for the first time in a season-opening 3-1 win over Madawaska on Sept. 4, but her father said she felt she had just jammed her ankle.
It hurt badly the next morning, but X-rays were negative for a broken bone. She played two more games and had a couple of goals and four or five assists before the doctor informed them that there was something unusual on the X-ray.
“If you sprain an ankle you can rehabilitate it. If you break an arm, you can set it. But this is an unknown,” Bouchard said. “She would be very fortunate to come back to play soccer. It could take six to eight weeks or it could take six months.”
Bouchard said it is at “stage two” so it hasn’t progressed to a point where it would require surgery.
Kolleen Bouchard was one of the team’s leading goal scorers a year ago as she netted over 20 goals and set the school freshman scoring record.
She averaged 19.2 points, 8.5 rebounds and 3.7 steals in leading the Shires to their first state basketball championship since 1991 last winter.
Bouchard became only the third freshman since 1991 to earn a spot on the BDN All-Maine team. She was chosen the Most Valuable Player in the Eastern Maine Class C tournament.