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With the click of a mouse Jan. 28, Mary Casey learned her dreams had vanished.

An e-mail from the Los Angeles Sol, the Women’s Professional Soccer team that had drafted her just 13 days earlier, informed the former Terrapin goalkeeper that the franchise no longer existed. Casey and the team’s other 18 players would enter a dispersal draft where those fortunate enough would be picked up by another of the fledgling league’s teams.

Casey wasn’t completely blindsided. Just a week earlier, the team’s front office had held a conference call with all of the players to announce the possibility of folding but added that it remained hopeful it would find an answer to the team’s financial problems.

But with that e-mail, soccer, for a moment, felt distant to Casey. All the work she had put in the previous few weeks during pre-draft workouts from Chicago to Philadelphia now seemed pointless. She wondered if her last game in a Terp uniform would be her last in a competitive game, period.

“I was shocked,” she said. “For as good of club as that was, it was pretty surprising to know that it was in any sort of trouble. For me personally, it was a little kick to the gut.”

In January, the Sol, first-place finisher in the WPS regular season and runner-up in the league’s playoffs, had used its No. 38 overall pick to draft Casey, who officials saw as “a hardworking keeper that’s reliable and someone we could groom to have for a lot of years,” according to General Manager Charlie Naimo. But before she could even get her first year underway, the All-ACC goalkeeper, who led the Terps to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament, was left without a team.

“She was drafted by the best team in the league,” Terps’ coach Brian Pensky said. “She was on top of the world. She was all set to go on this new adventure with a great team and great players, and the bottom drops.”

She didn’t let go of her dream, though. With the help of Pensky and the rest of the Terps’ coaching staff, Casey talked to almost every WPS team in the league, hoping one would offer her a chance.

The Washington Freedom, whose youth development team Casey starred on before coming to College Park, gave her a shot. But the Freedom already had a logjam at goalkeeper and couldn’t afford to add another so close to the season’s start.

“By that time, the teams were pretty much settled, goalkeeping-wise,” Pensky said. “It really wasn’t a lack of interest and more of a timing issue.”

When it became increasingly evident that no WPS teams would have an open for her on their opening day rosters, Casey sat down with Pensky to figure out her options.

She faced two paths: Chase her dream of playing professional soccer or enroll in graduate school as she had previously planned.

Before even considering the possibility of playing professional soccer, Casey wanted to become an athletic trainer. And as her options in professional soccer dwindled, Casey began to feel a pull to graduate school once again.

“Everyone has an ego, everyone has emotions and everyone wants to be wanted, and I think the reality is she had a feeling of being not wanted,” Pensky said. “She had thoughts about saying ‘forget this’ because of her emotional roller coaster.”

But Casey decided to keep pushing. She could study kinesiology in her 30s, but playing competitive soccer at that age was another matter.

“You shouldn’t play sports for money,” Casey said. “I’m doing this so that I can keep playing soccer and play at a high level. I can go to grad school later, but I can’t play professional soccer later.”

To rekindle her soccer career, Casey reconnected with Naimo, who had drafted her months earlier and is the coach and president of the W-League’s Pali Blues, a second-division team with a track record of developing unheralded players.

After Naimo’s earlier show of faith, Casey felt confident in heading to Los Angeles to play for the Blues, who have won two straight championships and helped put more than 20 players into the WPS.

“If you’re a very good player and have had success, then you can make it,” Naimo said. “I don’t think you need to be an All-American to make it into the league.”

In the coming weeks, Casey will make the cross-country trek to California, where she plans to start her professional career at long last. Her first exhibition match is May 22, and two weeks later, she begins the regular season.

Finally, after months of stress and questioning, Casey has found a home.

“You always have to keep perspective, and it’s always very easy to get frustrated with it,” Casey said. “I had to realize that I had some good things going, and if I kept working at it, then things would start to go my way. I can’t give up on it.”

ceckard@umdbk.com