BIDDEFORD – Forget setting records, and never mind that she isn’t playing her first choice for a college sport. Taryn Flagg knows she probably has no business still setting her sneakers on a field or a court these days, at all.

Chronic right knee problems led the Livermore Falls graduate to a startling discovery after her freshman field hockey season at the University of New England.

“I found out I was born without part of my femur,” Flagg said. “Well, they said they couldn’t really determine if it was missing due to a defect or from impact.”

The femur, commonly called the thigh bone, is the largest bone in the human body. It bears the brunt of an athlete’s weight and helps provide stability to the knee.

Flagg played contact, stop-and-start sports virtually from the time she was old enough to walk. That she excelled at basketball, softball and field hockey with only one prior major injury (her junior year of high school) is a medical miracle.

That she returned from a bone transplant fit enough to wear a uniform again is another.

And the fact that Flagg is launching UNE scoring records into the stratosphere and has matured into one of the most prolific Division III field hockey players in New England? Well, that’s just utterly ridiculous, and a testament to the will and dedication of the woman in question.

“Her competitiveness hasn’t changed,” said UNE field hockey coach Joan Howard. “I don’t think you could ever take that out of her.”

With a goal and an assist in a 7-0 victory over Anna Maria College two weeks ago, Flagg, a senior with just under two years of athletic eligibility remaining, smashed UNE school standards for career goals (33) and total points (81).

Flagg scored seven goals in the Nor’easters first five games this season, leading the team to four victories. She rifled home 16 goals last fall after sitting out the entire 2007 season while awaiting the transplant.

“That’s a tough thing, because like any other transplant they put you on a donor list. I had to wait four months for a donor that was a match,” Flagg said. “You get a phone call to tell you there’s a match, and then you have two weeks to have the surgery because that’s how long they can preserve the bone.”

The procedure took place in late November, changing the Flagg family Thanksgiving plans and altering the course of Taryn’s life and athletic career.

Ten months usually gives a young athlete such as Flagg ample time to recover from leg or knee surgery and resume her playing career. Flagg previously underwent an operation to restore a torn meniscus in January of her junior year at Livermore Falls and reclaimed her place as a Mountain Valley Conference basketball all-star the following winter.

But a bone transplant is rife with as many potential complications and as much recovery time as an organ transplant.

“They tell you it’s about two years for it to completely heal, and I really haven’t slowed down,” Flagg said. “I was missing a significant portion of the bone. The surgeon said it was one of the biggest missing portions of bone they had ever seen. I played sports basically for 19 years without ever knowing it.”

Flagg’s intense personal training regimen has helped. Swimming, cycling and weight lifting have strengthened her from head to toe.

And that fighting spirit had a contagious impact on her UNE teammates. Howard’s first season as head coach coincided with Flagg’s medical redshirt campaign. Even with no guarantee that she’d ever return to the game, Flagg involved herself as faithfully as the team captains did.

“You want to talk about leadership. She was at every practice, every game, traveled on all our road trips,” Howard said. “She wanted to help out every way she could. She didn’t have to do all that.”

Basketball was Flagg’s first love and the endeavor that drew most schools’ recruiting interest.

Once Flagg settled — somewhat fittingly — upon occupational therapy as a major, she chose UNE. Then she approached the basketball coach about playing for the Nor‘easters.

Something didn’t click, and Flagg contacted the field hockey staff, instead.

“I take academics seriously,” she said, “and UNE has one of the best programs in the country.”

Flagg found out that field hockey already had a heavy freshman recruiting class. Undaunted, she was only of only two players to make the squad as a walk-on. She emerged as one of the team’s leading scorers that season, sharing the load with Lisa Baillargeon.

Baillargeon, who was Flagg’s “big sister” mentor in her rookie season, held most of the school’s scoring marks prior to Flagg’s record-shattering September.

“It’s something I wasn’t expecting to achieve after only a little more than two years of playing. I kind of just embrace it and go with it,” Flagg said of the records.

“The program has gotten stronger and stronger, so the last two years she’s had a stronger team around her. She has teammates to support her,” Howard added. “She doesn’t have to do it all by herself now.”

Flagg is entitled to a fifth year of eligibility but hasn’t decided whether or not she will play. A demanding clinical schedule as Flagg breaks into the medical field may force her to retire.

There also are uncertainties about the wounded knee, which never healed properly after the surgery due to Flagg’s refusal to rest.

“I try not to think about it. But it’s swollen and still causes me a lot of problems,” Flagg said. “I have good days and bad days.”

And plenty of autumn afternoons when she’s the best in her field.

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