Friday, November 6, 2026

WYSA’s Under-10 girls’ soccer travel team finish season undefeated

By Matt Pascarella

Windham Youth Soccer Association’s Under-10 girls’ travel soccer team is a non-competitive league that doesn’t have playoffs or tournament games. However, this team had an amazing season this fall. The team played a total of 14 games and went undefeated. The team had six shutouts and never gave up more than two goals during a game.

Members of Windham Youth Soccer
Association's Undcer-10 girls' travel
soccer team gather after winning the 
Pete Levasseur Fall Classic against
Sanford on Saturday, Oct. 24 at
Sanford. This win earned Windham
a perfect season.
PHOTO BY NATE BOWIE 
Its coaches, Nate Bowie and Catherine Chase, set team responsibilities to live by at every practice and game. Have fun, no talking while the coach is talking, always to give your best effort and be a good teammate. The kids took these to heart and doing so was the key to their success. Each member trusted each other and their team-first mindset really made the season special.

“Our season started with a mix of new and returning players with varying experience and skillsets which creates both opportunities and challenges for any coach,” said head coach Bowie, now in his third year of coaching WYSA travel teams. “We focused each training session on fundamentals: footwork, dribbling, passing, and shooting. We made sure each practice session maximized the amount of time they had with the ball. I can say that hands down we were the best passing team in the league this season which created tons of great scoring opportunities and really fun games to watch for the crowd.”

According to Bowie, what’s amazing about the strength of this team, consisting of fourth graders Emery Chase, Olivia Chartier, Libby Mitchell, Layla Wetherington, Maddie Duffy, Neilia Hebert, Trinity Walsh, Blake Bowie and fifth grader Reagan Gillies is every player on the team played every position throughout the season including goalkeeper. This versatile team was offensively strong with each player on the team scoring more than one goal throughout the season.

When looking back on the season, there were two games that really challenged the team, and this Windham Under-10 team rose to the occasion. When Windham played undefeated Falmouth late in the season, Windham was down 1-0, then tied the game 1-1. Later in the game, it was tied 2-2 and Windham came back to edge ahead 3-2 for the win.

In its last game of the season, the team played undefeated Sanford. Windham was motivated to keep its record intact and stepped up their game a notch (or two) to overcome this very tough Spartan team. The game was tight, physical, and exciting. Windham won, 3-1, after a last-minute goal to keep their strong record perfect.

“I think we had good shots and we played really well,” said Duffy about the Sanford game. “The first half was tough, and we really stepped it up in the second half. We had a great group, and everyone played well as a team. (My favorite part of the season was) playing for Coach Nate and Catherine again and I got to meet new friends. We were a really strong team. Our spacing got much better and everyone played well together.”

Bowie said he wanted to give a special thank you to the parents and families who supported this team so well throughout the season. He said he really enjoys teaching the kids not just soccer skills, but also about being good teammates and creating a good work ethic. <

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