By Sean O’Brien
The Oliver Ames High School Boys Varsity Soccer Team is coming off yet another outstanding season in which they lost in overtime in the state finals to Concord-Carlisle Regional High School. They reached the state finals twice in the past three years behind the phenomenal class of 2018 who graduated this year in the month of June. They are on their way to the tournament again this year.
Within this very talented group, a few players continued to pursue their career in soccer at the collegiate level. After losing 21 seniors to graduation and essentially their whole starting lineup, Coach Barata and this new look Oliver Ames Tigers will look to continue their prominent success on the field this season.
“OA soccer has been amazing the past couple years and we will need to fight even harder this year to get back to that and earn a championship since we basically just lost our whole team,” said captain Sean Flaherty.
Due to the player losses, they need to fill every position on the field with players that have little varsity experience. Even the captains for Oliver Ames this year have rarely any experience from last year.
Captain Niko Byron said there were a lot more responsibilities this off season because of the “lack of experience and chemistry” between the team.
Most of the new starters happen to be either Freshmen, Sophomores, or Juniors along with a few seniors to anchor this formation. To add onto the loss of the seniors, the boys soccer team is also lacking the physical strength and high “soccer IQ”, as the previous class knew the game so well.
Although Byron knows they are missing key components from last year, he is still confident in their ability to compete with the exceptional teams in the Hockomock League. Captain Sean Flaherty added on to this, saying that “although we lost a ton of great Seniors, it might benefit us. I could see us becoming the underdog team and surprising everyone”. Their defense and goalkeeper, Jacob Lerman, has been performing at an elite level as they have not allowed a single goal in any of their first three games.
Byron says that “the offense just needs to get clicking” behind his Co-Captain Sean Flaherty and they will have a very decent chance at competing for the Hockomock League title once again.