September 6, 2022 - Story and photos by Joshua Ross
No one is more eager to start playing this fall than the girls soccer team. One win away from the state championship last year has them hungrier then ever to get back to the title game. High expectations are not anything new for this program. Even with a new coach and the loss of key players from last year’s team, a recent poll has the girls ranking 4th…in the country.
The 12 returning varsity players, which includes senior captain, last year’s Patriot League MVP, and UCLA commit Sophie Reale, senior captain and Northeastern commit Maddie Aughe, senior and Cornell commit Emily Gibbons, senior and Williams College commit (track & field) Kelsey Tarby, and junior standout Claire Murray, all have been through this before and are ready for the challenge.
First year head coach Mary-Frances Monroe will take over a program that she is very familiar with. She was the goalies coach last year and is replacing her spouse, Sarah Dacey, who is now the head coach at Curry College. Just because the coaching job stayed in the family, doesn’t mean the coaching styles are the same. Philosophies might be the similar, but the delivery is a bit different.
“Our philosophies are very similar,” laughs Monroe. “But Sarah is a great motivator and gets them going. I’m more quiet that way and I told them it’s a little bit on them this year to motivate themselves. I will obviously motivate them, but it’s up to them to cheer each other on and get excited for each other.”
With a team this talented and experienced and so close to their ultimate goal last season, a change in coaching could have upset the apple cart, but so far so good.
“They’re completely different coaches,” says Aughe. “Even today before the scrimmage, it was just completely different than Coach Dacey. We’re really excited to see what happens this year.”
Monroe comes to Hingham with both college and professional soccer experience and will know exactly how to get the team, half of which will have no varsity experience, firing on all cylinders when the season starts.
“So many great players came out this year,” says Monroe. “I think it’s really great for Hingham soccer with our freshman, JV, and varsity teams. It was fun watching all the girls play, but we are set with our varsity team. The scrimmage was great to have them play with their teammates again. No surprises so far. We’ve returned 12 and they have proved that they want to play and they’re really excited. We have some new players who are little bit younger trying to get some experience in the scrimmages so I can see who clicks with who.”
If there is an advantage of going as far as they did in the playoffs and losing the title game, it’s the toughest and resiliency they built up through the journey. Monroe is building off that this year.
“They have all the grit from last year,” explains Monroe. “I’m just trying to teach them a little bit more tactics to make it a little easier for themselves. In stead of running so much, I’m going to make it smart running. It seemed to click between the first 30 minutes to second 30 minutes and they enjoy learning. Like I said, they have the grit, I’m just trying to teach a little more to them.”
One of the positions they will be replacing this year is at goaltender. Losing Kathryn Wilson leaves a big vacancy in the net but Monroe is confident with their keeper, senior Ella Stadtlander.
“Ella’s great,” she says enthusiastically. “I worked with the goalkeepers last year and I think she deserved minutes but it’s hard when you have two seniors in front of you. I think she’s excited. I asked her today and she said she was pumped. I think she’s up for the challenge and she wants to compete, she wants win, she wants to keep the ball out of the back of the net and help her team be successful.”
Her teammates agree with their coach.
“I’d say she’s pretty ready,” says senior captain and defenseman Caroline Shiffmann. “I feel like I trust her in the net. She’s very quick. She’s very in the game. It’s definitely different than Kathryn. She’s a lefty and few other small differences, but I’d say Ella’s built for the job.”
With preseason wrapping up and the regular season kicking off this afternoon, Monroe’s challenge is to keep them focused all year, especially with expectations and recognition being so high.
“There’s always a lot of pressure on them,” she explains. “Every time someone comes to field to play Hingham, they want to beat them. I told them before the scrimmage, this is a scrimmage but you need to come to play at every moment. Because if you don’t if you don’t play for one minute or one second, they could be the difference maker in the game and you could lose the game. So you’re always going to have people gunning for us and wanting to beat Hingham because you have such a great history, we have a lot of returners, and we are very competitive, and we are ranked 4th in the country, so they need to come ready to play.”
Getting in the right mindset and making sure everyone is on the same page will be the key to their success according to the captains.
“I think in the back of our heads we all know where we stand ranking wise,” Aughe says. “But we still have a lot to prove. It’s not going to be given to us. We all know that we are really going to have to work hard for us to have the success we want to have.”
They also know it’s up to them to lead by example.
“There are a lot of younger players on this team and knowing they look up to us,” Reale adds. “We always have to give 100% and be good role models.”