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Since the sixth grade, Vera DiSotto has wanted to be the starting goalkeeper on the Scarborough High varsity girls soccer team.

Having grown up in the town’s vibrant youth soccer program at the start of the high school’s Class A South dominance, DiSotto knew the amount of work and standard of skill required to reach that goal.

She’s attended goalie-specific camps and woken up early for Saturday morning practices. Both have helped the junior improve tremendously, but few things have helped her development like spending the last two seasons as the backup to Varsity Maine All-State keeper Sophia Rinaldi.

And now that Rinaldi has graduated, DiSotto is ready for her turn.

“Sophia was an amazing goalie,” DiSotto said. “She had a lot of records placed in this school, which will definitely be, if I wanted to beat them, tough. But I think that I am prepared to, hopefully, fill those shoes just as I’ve been set up to. … (My teammates) know that I can do it, and they trust me.”

Scarborough isn’t the only perennial contender undergoing a change in goal.

Bangor, which in 2024 denied the Red Storm a third straight state title, Brunswick and Camden Hills had to address vacancies in Class A North. Ditto Yarmouth in B South. Last year’s top five teams in C South — Maranacook, Hall-Dale, state champion North Yarmouth Academy, Traip Academy and Mt. Abram — all have new starting keepers. Buckfield, which is competing in 8-person soccer a year after winning the Class D South title, has multiple understudies waiting in the wings.

The process of finding a starting goalie differs from school to school. For some, the search is easy. For others, it’s a little more complicated.

After 12 years with Cheverus, Craig Roberts became the Scarborough coach over the summer. The Stags don’t have a traditional feeder program as the Red Storm do, but Roberts has rarely had an issue finding his next starting keeper.

“I’ve been fortunate. I think every year I was at Cheverus, there was somebody who had played in goal,” Roberts said. “Backup, we maybe had to look for players, but there was somebody who had always played in goal.”

But at other schools, necessity is often the deciding factor.

Payton Blake of Poland played goalie at the youth level before switching to defense entering middle school. During a 7-on-7 tournament at Mt. Abram ahead of her sophomore season, the Knights needed someone to go in goal, so Blake volunteered.

Now with three keepers in the program, Poland coach Juan Bustamante has put more emphasis on development. During the preseason, assistant coach Craig Smith had the trio work goalie-specific drills as much as possible.

“That position is by far the most important position on this field,” Bustamante said. “You’ve got to have somebody there that knows the game, can be aggressive, can be loud (and) can direct players. (Blake’s) a fairly quiet kid so we’re really working all that stuff with them. She’s progressed exponentially.”

Over the summer, Poland paid for Blake, a junior, and sophomore Jenn Ackermann to go to a four-day Seacoast United goalie camp in Gorham, where they worked on their footwork and movement in the box, parrying techniques, communication skills and mental confidence.

“I’ve definitely improved (mentally),” Blake said. “Because if we lose a game, I just think in my head that we all did a good job and that we’ll get them next time, and that I just have more things to keep improving on as I go.”

Confidence and a strong mindset can be tough for a new goalie to develop. Roberts reminds his keepers that any goal can be attributed to at least one other breakdown somewhere else.

“I kind of hold myself a little bit too accountable sometimes, but I think that playing with this team the past two years, they’ve showed me that it’s just a mistake, and that it’s really not that big of a deal,” DiSotto said. “But definitely, from my freshman year to now, there’s a big change in my mentality around mistakes I make. I used to get much more frustrated with myself, but now I just flush it and I play better the rest of the game.”

Madison coach Lauren Peters is pleased that her new goalie, junior Izzabella Stonick, has been able to stay out of her own head. A former Madison goalie herself (in 2017, then known as Lauren Hay, she helped the Bulldogs reach the 2017 Class C final), Peters hosted two-a-day preseason sessions with Stonick to fine-tune form, maximize reps and make sure the transition from the field to the net goes smoothly.

“We also have been working with her on always making sure that she’s ready and she’s prepared, no matter where the ball is on the field,” Peters said. “Even if it’s at the complete other end, that she’s at the top of the 18. Every single time the ball moves, she’s moving. She’s staying in the game, she’s talking to her teammates, directing them where they need to go. That way she’s always ready.”