

On June 24, the Mayhem defeated the New York Knockout, 13-12, to win the league’s North East championship. This season, the team shifted into higher gear, scoring 204 points in the regular season with a 1,627 total yards while holding opponents to 42 points. The new offense finally made its debut in the 2022 season, with the Mayhem scoring 132 points and gaining 1,176 total yards of offense. “We were out here January all the way through June practicing and working on our passing game,” Oja said. During the time off, they retooled their offense around Schofield.
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However, just as the Mayhem were looking to implement their new offense, the team was forced out of competition for two full seasons because of the coronavirus pandemic. And all I want to do is just put them in a position to succeed.”

“The coaches just taught me everything I needed to know and my teammates built me up. So I was like, ‘I’ll give it a chance.’ I didn’t know anything else besides ‘Oh, I’m gonna have to throw it,'” Schofield said. On a whim, Schofield, with no previous quarterback experience, volunteered to replace her. “For my first two seasons (20), we were always running, probably 95% of the time, and based on our formation, they were able to overload the box and that would always stop us,” said Oja, who previously coached at Bonny Eagle Middle School in Standish.Īfter the 2019 season, the team’s quarterback retired. Her first season was in 2019.īryant Oja, the Mayhem’s head coach, said the team had a very different offensive scheme prior to Schofield’s arrival. After seeing Gammon wearing a Maine Mayhem sweatshirt, Schofield looked up the team and tried out later that year. She found out about the Mayhem from Jamie Gammon, a classmate at Southern Maine Community College and a center for the team. Maggie Schofield, 25, a landscaper from York, is the team’s quarterback. “There’s four Division 3 WFA teams left in the country right now and we’re one of them. “It’s often the case with women’s sports that it just doesn’t get the focus that the men’s do,” Archambault said. With the Mayhem’s recent success, they’re hoping to draw interest from new fans. Divisions are determined by a variety of factors, including market size, the number of players on each roster and how long a team has been in existence.ĭivision 3 is the largest division in the WFA, with 29 teams competing for the national title.

The Mayhem compete in the third division of Women’s Football Alliance, a nonprofit that bills itself as the most competitive women’s tackle football league in the world. They can teach from beginning to expert.” “All the coaches are really nice and understanding with work schedules, payment problems and skill ability. “There’s a lot of new people on the team and a lot of really experienced people that can help teach you,” Smith said of the Mayhem roster. Most women who try out for the Mayhem never played football before. From 2017-19, the number of girls playing football in Maine at the high school level ranged from 6 to 18, according to data from the Maine Principals’ Association, compared to more than 3,000 boys each of those years. While some girls are introduced to tackle football at the youth level, few participate in high school football. Kade Presby, 18, is also a previous Girl of Fall, marking the first season that multiple players from the program are on the Mayhem roster. The program recognizes the Girls of Fall at halftime of a Mayhem game, sets them up with a mentor, and has Mayhem players attend the girls’ games. Smith learned about the team while in high school after being invited to a Mayhem game through the Girls of Fall initiative. The team reaches new members through postings at local gyms, word of mouth, and the team’s Girls of Fall initiative, a mentoring program that recognizes and supports girls who play football at the youth and high school levels.
