Septmeber 16, 2024 – Story and photos by Joshua Ross
The Hingham field hockey team has not missed a beat coming off their historic Final Four run last season.
There was a chance, and frankly a little fear from head coach Susan Petrie, that there would be some regression for the team to start the new year. But this hasn’t been the case. In fact, they look stronger than ever.
In their first five games, the Harborwomen are 5-0. They have outscored their opponents 32-1, including a 5-0 shutout against a very good Falmouth team last week. Ten different players have scored with senior captain Haylen Wilson and freshman Libby Baxter leading the team with seven goals each.
“I was worried was there going to be a let down,” explains Petrie. “There’s all this pressure on them. But they are not playing that way. They were so excited to be back out here together and they recognized how lucky they are to have each other. They work hard and they have fun. They are not letting this go to their heads and they know how far hard work will take them. They also realize that team chemistry is what’s really going to matter in a lot of these games. So right away with our new players, (the veterans) have welcomed them into the program and they’ve really kind of gelled already.”
The advantage of pick right up where they left off and winning the way they are is getting the new players some valuable playing time. With 17 field players and two goalies, that’s not always the case each season.
“It’s huge,” says Petrie. “Both goalies are getting a ton on playing time. My entire bench is playing. I think we benefitted from that last year. Players who didn’t start last year where able to step right into a certain position because they got a lot of playing time. And its nice for the starters to get breaks when the subs go in and the level of play stays the same.”
While the red hot start is welcomed and the girls are playing top level hockey, Petrie sees this an opportunity to really fine tune some skills that will hopefully get them to the next level.
“We are really nitpicking at practice,” Petrie goes onto to say. “We have the basics down and there are little things that we can do better. We’ve really been working on our corners. We’ve really been working on our passing game, which I think has been one of our strengths. We know the foundation is there, but we know in order to beat the top teams in our division we need to do all the little things as well.”
This is probably one of the most experienced teams at Hingham High in terms of team chemistry and meaningful playoff experience. They also have the benefit of some young talented players making early impacts on the team. It definitely a team to keep an eye on as the season goes on.
The Harborwomen only have one game this week, tomorrow at home vs Hanover, but ramp things back up the following week with 3 games.