Fall Soccer Program At Newman Continues its Resurgence
BOSTON, MASS - Fall. The leaves are beginning to turn yellow in hue. The school year is starting, the bustling of students around school. The air is crisp and calm outside, at the perfect temperature. What better time to play sports than during the quintessential Boston fall?
Newman sports began as soon as school started, with teams arising such as Crew, Volleyball, Middle School Soccer, and Boys and Girls Varsity Soccer. After the end of the season, the teams have now produced a strong sense of their competitiveness and bond as a team.
Middle School Soccer
Middle School soccer, similarly to last year, is a makeshift team. Composed of young Varsity players and middle schoolers, the team still practices twice a week and has a relatively infrequent schedule of games. So far, the Middle School team has participated in 3 matches, and is only set to play two more, against Meridian and Jewish Country Day School.
The team normally gets about 11 or 12 participants per game, and only a handful of them venture to practice, as many of them have other obligations. The games themselves are not particularly long, featuring brief 25 minute halves, and compared to the 40 minute halves played at the Varsity level, they are quite meager.
Nevertheless, it is still a fun activity to participate in. “It’s not serious. Practices are just kind of a fun thing,” asserts Basile Badea ‘28, a forward for the Middle School team. The team also seems to be bonding well, as most of them are good friends and connected with each other. “I just got to know new people, especially in seventh grade,” Badea says. One thing that the team has fostered is a strong bond between 8th and 7th graders, and the light-hearted after school activity produced has bridged the gap between different grades, bringing the middle school closer together.
While it is challenging to envisage a middle program that has rigorous practices, longer game schedules, larger squad sizes, and more disciplined teams, the sport has allowed for grades to connect and enjoy an experience a school team.
Boys Varsity Soccer
The Boys Varsity squad ended the season on a note that would have been hard to envisage at the beginning of the season. The start of the season saw exceedingly difficult matches against Gann Academy and the British International School of Boston (BISB), in both of which the team was held scoreless. Since then, the team has been competitive in every single game, even playing BISB once more and winning quite comfortably by a 3 goal margin.
Following the initial two games of the season, the team faced off against Waring at the Bedford Edge, losing narrowly 4-3, courtesy of a wonderful strike to seize the lead in the waning minutes of the game by the opposing team. The team, having played three games, got an extremely well-deserved win and a clean sheet against Chauncy Hall-Chapel Hill (CHCH), winning dominantly 3-0. After the win against CHCH, the team got increasingly more competitive; practices became more demanding, and the overall quality of play increased massively in the team. Following a loss in treacherous conditions against BUA, the team rebounded vigorously, annihilating rivals commonwealth by a seven goal margin, and then dominating against BISB at Ebersol. After fluctuating in form, winning two and losing two over the next four games, the Newman school faced its final two opponents, BUA and Brimmer and May.
The game against BUA ended in a 3-1 win on senior’s night. The game opened with two incredible goals split between the two teams, the first one being an extraordinary lob goal from senior and captain Eoin Pedreschi that flew over an exposed goalkeeper, and the second goal being a swift finish from outside of the box from the opponent. The team would go on to augment their lead in the dying minutes of the game.
The last game before the playoff season was one against Brimmer and May, a game that proved to be profoundly difficult given the way the team commonly played. A lot of the team’s success had come on the small, ruddy pitches of Ebersol, pitches which allowed for a more direct style of play in a 4-3-3. The field at Brimmer and May was a goliath, perhaps twice as large as the pitches ordinarily used. The game ultimately led to a 2-0 loss, however, given the vast stylistic shifts the team had to make; the performance shown as not at all bad.
Having shown quite a solid season, the team qualified for the playoffs, the first game being against perennial rivals Commonwealth, as a home game. The team had produced inconsistent results over Commonwealth, the former match of the two game series being a hearty 7-0 thrashing, the latter being a slim 2-1 win. This game showed no signs of equivocation, with Newman controlling the possession and flow of the game, ultimately leading to an impressive 5-0 will that would send Newman into the final with flying colors.
A big game must have a big venue. With BUA advancing in their playoff game, Newman was set to face them on the BU Nickerson field, a venue that had a capacity of nearly ten thousand. The floodlights shone down upon the match, fans from Newman and BUA lined the bleachers and the sidelines. The first half began in somewhat of an impasse, both teams had chances at their other end of the pitch, but it was not evident which one was in control more; there were questions to be asked about the flow of the game. However, as the minutes ticked on the first half, BUA gained more control of the game, and were able to capitalize from their chances, scoring a goal to snatch the lead. BUA would later augment their lead to 2-0, and despite valiant efforts and close attempts to bridge the gap that now lay between the two teams, the result finished in defeat. However, the same could not be commented on for the season on the whole, it showed the team settling into a rhythm and a style of playing, and making the championship game, which would have been quite hard to fathom prior to the first few games.
Available in the Winter 2024 Print Edition