November 8, 2024 – Story and photos by Joshua Ross
A win is a win. Especially during the playoffs. And one goal wins are the norm come this time of year.
Last year, the Harbormen lost 1-0 at home in the quarterfinals to a lower seeded Oliver Ames. Everyone knows that anytime team can win in November.
“No matter what seed you are you could lose,” explains senior Matty Cummings. “I think preparing yourself and thinking we could lose at any point at any time, we have to give it our all, especially on the field. Even if you’re gassed, you just got to keep going. It is just preparing ourselves for other teams and seeing how they look and saying they could be us – they can beat us if they wanted to, but we just have to play our game.”
That mentality was certainly tested on Wednesday night when 4th seed Hingham took on the 36th seed Nashoba Regional in the opening round of the playoffs. The game was tied most of the first half until Cummings headed one past the goal to score the games only goal. Behind Patriot League Keenan Division MVP Jacob Riker in net, the Harbormen shut down Nashoba in the second half securing the win and a spot in the round of 16.
“When you look at our team throughout the whole season our strength is defense,” says coach Dave Leahy. “You can see that with the All-Stars we have, the amount of shutouts we have, so we have that mentality of kind of kill the game if we have to no matter what. We are not always going to score a whole bunch, but we can keep them off the board.”
The boys will now play 20th seed Milton on Saturday at home at 3pm. Click here to purchase tickets.