September 28, 2023 – Story and photos by Joshua Ross
The saying goes “possession is 9/10ths of the law.” In the case of this year’s Hingham boys soccer team, possession is 9/10ths of the defense. The other team can’t score if they don’t have the ball. In five games to start the season, the Harbormen have allowed zero goals. Five clean sheets for junior captain goaltender Jacob Riker. He may not see many shots during a game, but the saves have been timely. Including a save on a penatly shot over the weekend against Plymouth North.
Tuesday’s game in Whitman-Hanson was a homecoming for head coach Ken Carlin. Carlin, who announced at the beginning of the season that this would be his 25th and last, is a graduate of WHRHS and was reconginzed before the game. This was Hingham’s fourth road game in five games, which makes their numbers that more impressive.
Carlin had to replace 24 seniors this year. His roster includes only five players who played varsity last season. What they are accomplishing is with a group of players with very varsity experience. So far, so good.
“This team has been amazing,” Carlin tells the Anchor. “For example, we scrimaged Marshfield the Saturday before Labor Day and it was a 0-0 tie. We played them a few weeks later and we won handedly. It wasn’t that we were lucky and we scored five goals, in every metric you can think of, we were off the charts.”
While your eyes will tell you one thing, it’s hard to argue with the numbers. And Carlin loves his numbers. Using a third party, the videos of the games are analyzed every night and every data point you can think is returned the next day – passes, string of passes, time of possesion, shots, etc. And if you talk with Carlin for any amount of time, he’s happy to start spurting them out.
“For instance, against Quincy we had 40 strings of passes to their 6,” Carlin eagerly starts to rattle off the numbers. “We out shot them 20 to 4. We had 69% of the possession for the entire game. We competed 79% of our passes, they completed a little under 50%.”
The stats are confirming what Carlin already know, they are are improving each game. However, he does explain there is something that caught him off guard with this team.
“What I’m seeing is that every game that we play, there are things we need to work on, but we are getting stronger and way more cohesive as we go. We are at the point now that what other players do is becoming predictable to the other players on the team. That is huge, especially in the game I do, that’s all about possession. And they are really getting it. They may be getting it faster and better than any team in that last 15 years. It’s mind-boggling and super surprising. It’s not what I expected.”
What definitely hasn’t been expected is the shutdown defense. It’s one thing to win five in a row, it’s another to do so in such dominating fashion.
“Obviously I haven’t done much,” humbly exclaims Riker. “The defense is playing great. Offensive has been working well. I thing we are moving the ball really well. And I think from the results, the new team hasn’t been a problem for us.”
Riker echos what Carlin sees as far as the team getting better each game.
“The improvement is crazy right now,” Riker goes on to say. “Everybody is working really hard. It’s a testament to the JV team really development players who can step right into varsity games and is clearly ready to play.”
It is still relatively early in the season, especially with a couple of postponed games to be made up, but Carlin is starting to understand what kind of team his going to have this season.
“I had no idea what kind of team this would be,” explains Carlin. “But I’ve had one surprise after another for personnel and as a whole group. They are like a typical Hingham soccer team and that means they are building a community, they like each other, they’re having fun – and all of those are ingredients for a solid team.”
The numbers absolutely confirm that Carlin has a solid team.