For what is believed to be the first time ever, four University of Maine field hockey games and one women’s soccer game will be broadcast on WVII ABC 7 or WFVX Fox 22 this season.
The sister stations have aired a handful of UMaine football games every season for several years and will show four this season.
Fox 22 will televise the field hockey games, and ABC 7 will carry the soccer contest.
All will be held in Orono.
The first televised field hockey game will pit UMaine against Davidson at 11 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 6. The station will also air games against Albany on Oct. 2, New Hampshire on Oct. 9 and Vermont on Oct. 29, all starting at 3 p.m.
The soccer game appearing on ABC 7 will be against the New Jersey Institute of Technology at noon Oct. 11.
With the exception of Davidson, which is a non-conference contest, the other four are all America East games.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” said WVII ABC 7/WFVX Fox 22 general manager Mike Palmer. “I would much rather show local programming. We worked things out with our friends at the University of Maine and at Van Wagner.”
Van Wagner is UMaine’s multimedia sports partner.
The ABC 7/Fox 22 partnership has recently added the 43rd annual Stonington Lobster Boat Races and the International Great Crate Race in Rockland to its list of local programming.
The UMaine field hockey team went 7-12 overall and 1-4 in America East last fall but upset UMass Lowell 4-3 in the America East quarterfinals before losing to top seed Vermont in a shootout in the semis after neither team scored during regulation or overtime.
UMaine is playing Stonehill at 1 p.m. Friday and will be looking for its first win after being humbled by No. 8 Liberty University, 5-0, and No. 15 UMass, 7-0, last weekend.
Stonehill is 0-1 and will play 1-2 Davidson on Saturday in Orono at the UMaine Field Hockey Complex.
Davidson was 10-9 a year ago, 3-3 in the Atlantic 10 and lost to Richmond 4-2 in its only A-10 playoff game.
Albany was 12-7 overall and 3-2 in America East and lost to New Hampshire 6-4 in the conference semifinals; UNH was 12-7 and 4-1 and won the America East tournament with a 1-0, double-overtime win over Vermont before being thumped by Harvard 8-2 in the NCAA Tournament.
Vermont’s loss to UNH capped an 11-8 campaign. The Catamounts were 4-1 in league regular season play.
The UMaine women’s soccer team is the defending three-time America East tournament champion but took a 1-3-1 record into a Thursday night home game against Army at the New Balance Soccer Complex.
UMaine went 6-8-4 overall a year ago and just 3-3-2 in conference regular season play, but topped New Hampshire 2-1 in the quarterfinals before going on the road and upsetting Binghamton 1-0 in double overtime in the semifinals and Vermont in a penalty kick shootout 4-3 in the title game after rallying from a 2-0 deficit to tie the game, 2-2, to force overtime and then the penalty kick shootout.
UMaine lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, 2-0, at Central Florida.