JAY — Coach Julia Parker didn’t know how long she’d owned her pair of orange shorts she wore at field hockey practice Wednesday, but she knew it hadn’t been long.

“It’s weird, having orange in my wardrobe,” Parker admitted.

The shirt she sported was just as intriguing — bright green with orange script reading, “Jivermore.”

Neon green and orange didn’t catch on this year for the newly-formed Spruce Mountain High School.

Nor did the name “Jivermore.”

But all that was part of a recent past during which field hockey players from the two former rival schools from Jay and Livermore Falls cooperated, leading up to this year’s ultimate collaboration, the consolidation of the two programs across the board, in sports and in academia.

The shirts are a reminder to the girls who are wearing them — and to the coaches — how far the team has come, how close its members have become, in a short amount of time.

“Last summer (in 2010), Jane (DiPompo) and I got a group of girls to go up to Hampden Academy for a round robin tournament, and the girls came up with the name and the colors,” Parker said. “That’s when we started bringing the girls together.”

Even the coaches were bred in the rivalry, with DiPompo, a Jay graduate, leading the Tigers in their final season, while Parker, a Livermore Falls alumna, behind the bench for the Andies.

“But we’ve always been friends, too,” Parker said. “That’s the thing. You can’t really live around here and not know everyone, and it’s been great for this all to happen.”

The players found it difficult at first, but quickly realized how beneficial combining the programs could be.

Livermore Falls went 13-1 a year ago and made a push in the Class C playoffs. Jay won nine games with a young squad, but had a hard time with its longtime rival. The Andies graduated a large number of players. Jay lost a few key girls, too, but remained largely intact. The holes created by graduation on either side seemed to coincide with each others’ strengths as the teams merged.

“It was the perfect time,” senior goalie Ashlee Quirrion said. “I know they’d lost a lot of players.”

“Thirteen,” senior wing Kathryn Ventrella interjected, rolling here eyes and giggling. “That was a bit of a big class.”

The two seniors — Quirrion, a former Tiger, and Ventrella, once an Andie — saw the consolidation move easily throughout the summer league, and the younger players, they said, won’t know any differently by the time they’re seniors.

“Most of them are already friends through AAU basketball or other sports, and they’ve never really been part of the whole rivalry,” Ventrella said.

The toughest part of the whole merger?

“Learning everyone’s names,” Quirrion laughed. “I’ve almost got it down. I think.”

At practice Wednesday, some players continued to don Jay Tigers gear, and Livermore Falls Andies gear, while some opted for the new, black-and-green of the united Phoenix.

Whatever, the girls said. As long as everyone is playing toward the same goal.

“The names are just names from the past,” Ventrella said. “We like to remember the past, but we’re looking forward to tomorrow.”