Drawing poorly at UMBC Stadium, the cash-strapped Maryland Mania announced yesterday that it will play at least seven of its remaining eight A-League home games at Anne Arundel Community College's stadium in Arnold.

The first of those games, said team president and founder A. J. Ali, will be Sunday's 4: 05 p.m. match against the Toronto Lynx. One home game may be played in Columbia, Ali said.

The community college, at 100 College Pkwy., east of Ritchie Highway and north of U.S. Route 50, has a grass field, which soccer players and fans much prefer to UMBC's artificial turf.

"It just came down to the fact that we can't survive there," Ali said of UMBC, where the 1-8, last-place team has been drawing 300 to 700 fans a game.

The Annapolis-Arnold-Severna Park area, he said, "is a better soccer area [than UMBC], and the county's economic development office and chamber of commerce have been phenomenal to work with. We'd love to locate a permanent home in Anne Arundel County. The people there have really reached out to us."

Pub Date: 6/16/99