Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Rebel with a Cause

Ryan Izzo

Walpole's Ryan Izzo has starred on the lacrosse and football fields throughout an illustrious high school career. (Photo courtesy Ron Izzo)


WALPOLE — This summer, Ryan Izzo was firmly on the fence between which sport he would play in college. He even thought about playing both football and lacrosse before he attended The Shootout by Brine lacrosse camp at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Playing in the prestigious camp was nothing new for the highly-heralded Walpole High running back and midfielder. He’d competed there since he was in middle school. But coming off a spring season in which Izzo scored 58 goals to lead the Rebels to the Division II state title, the atmosphere of the hottest lacrosse hotbed in the world was more poignant than ever.

“Everywhere you go games are going on, you go from one field to the next and if you don’t want to watch that game you walk to another field,” said Izzo, who shocked local high school football circles by verbally committing to the University of Massachusetts’ lacrosse team, potentially leaving football in his wake forever.

“The atmosphere is just amazing; constant games, constant motion.”

Izzo’s decision hit the streets shortly after he returned from the lacrosse Mecca around mid July to the football-mad South Shore.

“I knew people would be uneasy about it, it would be a big shock,” Izzo said of breaking the news. “A lot of people were surprised. A lot of people said they weren’t surprised and they saw it coming; that was from people around town who see me all the time.

“Out-of-town people were shocked, like they saw a ghost or something crazy.”

The bombshell that a player growing up in the shadow of Gillette Stadium (where Walpole won the Division II Super Bowl last fall), would choose lacrosse over football set off immediate skepticism among high school football insiders.

The fact that Izzo is only 1,666 yards shy of Cedric Washington’s state record of 6,688 career rushing yards and 60 points short of Nathan Sherr’s points record (682 points), has only added fuel to the fire.

Izzo’s father, Ron, wasn’t surprised his son chose lacrosse and wasn’t surprised by the reaction folks had to the decision either.

“I kind of figured that would be the reaction,” Ron said. “He has a lot of potential (at football). Ryan is a big boy. He’s an adult and I’m glad he put as much thought into it as he has. A lot of people think ‘Oh he’s such a good football player and I agree with that. I think I he could have a really good time playing football.”

But Izzo’s father said his son is realistic about how much playing time he could get at schools reported to be recruiting him for football, such as Boston College, Syracuse and New Hampshire. That point was driven home even harder when they learned that Sherr recently transferred from the University of Connecticut to Mass. Maritime Academy.

Ryan Izzo

Ryan Izzo hopes to propel Walpole two another Division II Super Bowl title this season.

“He didn’t grow those three or four inches the last three years everyone hopes they do, I know I wish I had when I was in high school,” Ron said. “There are just so many factors. I just try to be supportive.”

Nevertheless, speculating if Izzo really will give up football has become a favorite parlor game amongst, coaches, players and parents.

Even Izzo’s coach Barry Greener is willing to speculate.

“I don’t think that’s definite, I don’t regard that as a definite,” he said of Izzo’s verbal commitment to play lacrosse. “I think some football offers will come in. It’s up to him. I don’t favor one over the other. It’s his life. He should do what he wants to do. Whatever he wants to do I certainly support.”

In the run up to the Nov. 1 lacrosse National Signing Day, Izzo himself has left open a window that he could still end up playing football.

“It’s not 100 percent definite but when Nov. 1 rolls around it will be,” he said of playing lacrosse for UMass. “That’s the thing, I don’t even know what’s going to happen. My mind could change, some freak thing could happen. That’s why I keep my options open and am still talking to some football schools.

“Ultimately, I still want to play lacrosse.”

Izzo says he is about 80 to 90 percent sure he will honor his verbal commitment to UMass, where his sister will be a senior when he’s a freshman.

“The fact that she’s there and it’s close to home is just a bonus,” he said. “It’s like whenever people say that a lot of people pick a school because it feels good when they first get on campus, they have a smile on their face and everything. I go up there and that’s the feeling I get. It’s a great feeling.”

Another consideration for his decision was that football tends to take a bigger toll on a player’s body than lacrosse. Although Izzo isn’t so sure about that anymore after he separated his shoulder at the Champ Camp in Baltimore shortly after attending the Brine camp.

“It obviously came to my mind that football definitely puts more stress on your body,” Izzo said. “But based on the fact that my (recent) injury happened in lacrosse and didn’t happen from football, that ruled that out of my head.”

Because of the injury Izzo wasn’t able to take part in full-contact drills through August and didn’t see real-time until just before the Sept. 11 season opener, a 20-6 victory against Framingham. Just three days after Izzo was cleared to play, he rushed for three touchdowns and gathered 163 yards.

He followed that performance up with two TDs in a 21-0 victory at Milton. When the Rebels finally returned home to beat Newton North 28-14 on Saturday, Izzo logged three more touchdowns, including a 35-yard, over-the-shoulder catch in the end zone and a 60-yard run to the end zone.

“That 60-yard run, there wasn’t one block anywhere,” Greener said. “It was one of worst block plays I’ve seen. That’s what he can do.”

Ryan Izzo

Izzo has been a mainstay on defense for the Rebels as well, serving as their top linebacker. (Photo courtesy Ron Izzo)

Finishing the game with 225 yards, Izzo surpassed 5,000 career rushing yards, leaving his coach speculating once again.

“He probably can do both,” Greener, who is in his 39th season coaching but first as Walpole head coach, said of Izzo breaking the state rushing and scoring records. “I think he’s got a chance absolutely but there’s so much it depends on. If we’re beating a team 40-0 I’m not leaving him in there.

“It just depends. Any kid, even as tough as he is, is only one hit away from his last play. I hate to make predictions, it just jinxes everything. He’s a hell of a player. I’ve been at it a long time and we won’t see anyone like him at Walpole for at least another generation. He’s one of those guys.”


2009 football lacrosse massachusetts ryan izzo walpole eastern massachusetts

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Globe South Sports

Making an impact

Bentley University junior Liam Regan (above) and senior Michael Duffy, once teammates at Boston College High School, are back starting together as linebackers for the 2-0 Falcons. Bentley University junior Liam Regan (above) and senior Michael Duffy, once teammates at Boston College High School, are back starting together as linebackers for the 2-0 Falcons. (Photos Sports Pix)
By Justin A. Rice Globe Correspondent / September 13, 2009

WALTHAM - The Curry College player, seemingly, was out of reach, with a clear path to the end zone after scooping up a blocked extra point. Could Liam Regan track him down?

Michael Duffy, his former teammate at Boston College High School, had faith. But he was likely alone in his belief on the Bentley University sideline.

“I knew he had wheels, I kind of had a feeling he’d catch him,’’ Duffy said of the 80-yard rundown, in which Regan, a junior weakside linebacker from Milton, stiff-armed a blocker and stripped the ball from Jaime Santiago before it was recovered by Bentley around the 15-yard line.

“It wasn’t a surprise to me. It was one of the greatest plays I’ve ever seen,’’ said Duffy, a senior strongside linebacker from Plymouth. “Any time you see a play like that you’re always taken back. If anyone was going to do it, it’s Liam Regan. I’m so proud of him.’’

Not long after, Duffy punched in the first touchdown of his college career, when he was inserted as a fullback in the goal-line offense. That score came shortly after Regan registered his first career interception as the Falcons pulled away for a 43-17 win with 21 unanswered points Sept. 4.

Regan’s performance in Week 2 was an upgrade from his starting debut the week before at Ohio Dominican, in which he struggled on pass defense and didn’t fill the running lanes hard enough.

“He had to attack the football more,’’ said first-year Bentley coach Thom Boerman, a longtime assistant to retired coach Peter Yetten. “I think he really did improve at linebacker. A linebacker has to be the hammer, not the anvil. We’re trying to get him to be a better hammer.’’

Starting for the first time at linebacker since Pop Warner, the 6-foot, 210-pound Regan admitted he had jitters in the opener.

“It was good to get it out of the way,’’ he said. “I felt a lot better about myself after the second game. I felt like I belonged. It felt like I deserved to be out there.’’

At BC High, Regan was one of the top 10 scorers as a senior, despite missing the last five games because of a broken leg.

He did not receive a great deal of attention from recruiters because of the injury, but when he visited Bentley, Duffy served as his host and eventually sold him on the program.

But with a number of running backs on the depth chart, the Bentley coaches asked Regan to move to linebacker after his freshman season, joining Duffy.

“In high school, I was behind him at running back, and I learned a lot from him,’’ Regan said of the 6-foot, 240-pound Duffy. “Now, I’m back at it learning a lot from him again. It helps having your friends out on the field. If you screw up, they pick you up and help you out.’’

Duffy logged 75 tackles last season, while Regan made 10 as a reserve.

“It’s fun to play with him, too,’’ Duffy said. “I know he’ll always be there to clean up for me. I trust him because he’s someone I played with for a couple years.’’

The most difficult part of switching positions for Regan is figuring out where the play is going.

“I knew where I was going when I was a running back,’’ he said. “I saw a kid and either ran him over or juked him. Here, I see five kids running at me, and I’m supposed to fill the hole. I don’t have linebacker instincts. That’s one of the hardest things, . . . trying to learn to attack more.’’

Bentley junior lineman Tim Smith, who played at BC High with Regan and Duffy, is also impressed with Regan’s development as a linebacker.

“In our league, all the lineman are 300-pound kids,’’ said Smith, a starter every game since replacing an injured senior halfway through the 2007 season. “He’s used to running behind those kids instead of going after them.’’

That would be news to anyone who saw Regan sprint 80 yards after the blocked extra point. Playing behind Duffy at BC High forced Regan to learn how to run in the open field; scoring three long TDs was the only way to distinguish himself while playing in Duffy’s shadow. Duffy scored 20 touchdowns for the Eagles in 2006, earning All-Scholastic honors.

“Mike was so good at running back they never took him out of the game,’’ Regan said, adding that he only got two plays at a time to give Duffy rests. “I was never put in on the goal line. If I was gonna get a touchdown, I had to break it for 60 yards.’’

Duffy also helped Regan learn to be modest. He shrugged off several Bentley coaches who called Regan’s 2-point saving tackle against Curry one of the best plays they’ve seen in years.

“Everyone was saying I never knew you were that fast,’’ Regan said.

“I didn’t know I was that fast, either.

“I was just chasing the kid down.’’


Globe South Sports

Ryan aiming to extend

Norwood High turnaround

As a sophomore on Norwood High’s girls’ soccer team, Cory Ryan won Herget Division MVP honors in the Bay State Conference. As a sophomore on Norwood High’s girls’ soccer team, Cory Ryan won Herget Division MVP honors in the Bay State Conference. (Tom Herde for The Boston Globe)


By Justin A. Rice
Globe Correspondent / September 10, 2009

As a ball girl for the Norwood High girls’ soccer team, Cory Ryan watched her three older sisters lose a lot of matches over the last decade. Prior to her arrival three years ago, the Mustangs had never won more than six games in a season, or qualified for the tournament, in their history.

The prospect of playing for a perennial loser made it difficult not to consider playing somewhere else when her mom asked if she wanted to attend private high school; the same offer her three sisters, Shay (class of 2004), Tayla (’06), and Courtney (’07), turned down before her.

“Yeah, I did think about it a little bit, but I kind of was like, ‘Oh we’ll see how it goes; I can always see what happens,’ ’’ said the junior midfielder.

The summer before her freshman year, Cory was so excited about playing with her sister Courtney that she decided to give the Mustangs a chance.

“Before the season started, we would talk about who we could beat and what players were coming back,’’ said Courtney, who missed the previous season with an anterior cruciate ligament tear. “We had an idea who we’d be able to beat.’’

They had no idea they could turn the previous year’s record (4-13-3) completely on its head, going 13-4-3. It took more than Cory’s assisting on all three goals in her debut, a 3-1 victory against Wellesley, for Tayla to believe her father’s postgame dispatches.

“I remember calling my dad and being in shock,’’ said Tayla, a member of the University of New Hampshire track team. “It was crazy.

“It’s awesome. I’m so proud of her and so happy for her. This year I’ll have to try to think of ways to get to the games. She’s so natural and such an awesome player. It’s so impressive.’’

Besides Cory’s 14 goals and 10 assists, the most impressive part of that first season was Norwood’s first-ever postseason victory. Courtney went down with an injury on the last play of regulation but returned in time for Cory’s overtime corner kick.

“I saw it right there towards my head and charged at it and it went in the back of the net,’’ Courtney said of the winning header. “I looked at her and we found each other sprinting. Everyone else ran over. It was something else.’’

That spring Cory did some more sprinting, qualifying for the New England track meet in the 200 meters.

“She has the speed; she has incredible endurance,’’ Norwood coach Jay Dupuis said. “She can run all day. She plays 80 minutes of every game. There’s nobody on the field faster, never anybody more skilled. She’s just a complete player.’’

Cory’s soccer success continued last fall, without her sister by her side. In leading Norwood to the Division 1 South Sectional final, Ryan netted 20 goals and added another 10 assists, earning Herget Division MVP honors in the Bay State Conference.

“Usually upperclassmen [win the award]; I remember thinking that would be the case,’’ she said “I wasn’t really going for it; it kind of surprised me but it was definitely a good surprise.’’

This season Norwood is shooting for its first Herget Division title and South Sectional championship. The trick for Cory will be to outdo last season’s performance while dealing with recruiting. She has already visited Boston College twice and West Virginia and Maryland once.

The decision won’t be hard if she makes it as definitively as she picked her high school. Cory wasn’t shy about telling her club teammates on the South Coast Scorpions that she was following in her sister’s footsteps by playing for the Bay State League’s bottom feeder.

“I was not really embarrassed because they play in the Bay State League, which is one of the toughest in the state,’’ Cory said. “I had faith. I just wanted to do what I could and help improve the program as much as I could.’’

Coaches plot different

routes to the end zone

By Justin A. Rice Globe Correspondent / September 10, 2009

HANOVER - Fran Armstrong, Matt Johnson, Joey Shisler, and Brett Wheeler can joke about the practice sessions now, reflecting a year later, as seniors on the Hanover High football team.

As juniors, they were seen, not heard.

“No juniors or sophomores could talk,’’ said Shisler, a running back/linebacker, recalling the workouts under the direction of first-year coach Brian King.

“When a junior said, ‘Oh I think this will work’ [the coaches] would say, ‘Oh, you don’t have a speaking part.’ ’’

Turning an underachieving 5-6 team into the school’s first league champion since 1988, King provided a jolt of discipline to the players: There was no walking, no taking a knee, and no dawdling between drills.

“If you undid your helmet, they’d ask you if you were on scholarship,’’ said Armstrong, a team captain who plays guard and defensive end.

At the end of the season, the seniors told King the structure he introduced made the difference.

“Players want discipline, continuity, all that stuff,’’ said King, a longtime assistant at Plymouth North and Pembroke who led the Indians to an 8-4 mark.

“I learned that as an assistant and I brought that to Hanover. People noticed right away the way we ran practice. We were doing something every minute; everything was scripted. They noticed things like that and that went a long way.’’

Turning around a high school football program, however, takes more than a healthy dose of discipline. The key to halting a losing cycle, according to a number of coaches in the area, is to create a winning culture.

Herb Devine, a former player and assistant at Whitman-Hanson, was named head coach at Scituate last summer, three weeks before the start of the season. He guided the Sailors to a 7-4 mark, a drastic turnaround for a team that had been 2-9 in 2007.

The program’s fifth coach in four years, he made sure players were held accountable for their actions and streamlined practices that had run long the previous season.

“The game of football wasn’t fun anymore; there was no enthusiasm and the morale was just kind of beaten down,’’ said Devine, who was the first high school coach from the state to take his team on a tour of The Hall at Patriot Place in Foxborough.

Devine also scrapped a five-wide spread shotgun offense in favor of a wing-T formation he thought would be a better fit for backs Marty Noenickx and Kyle Crowley. He was right. The Sailors won their first five games and the backfield duo nearly combined for 2,000 yards rushing.

What’s the key?

Devine said coaches can’t waver in their football philosophy and have to believe in themselves.

“I see a lot of programs where coaches kind of get pushed one way to do this by this person - just believe in what you’re doing,’’ said Devine, who played on Whitman-Hanson’s Super Bowl championship squad in 1989.

“I believe in where I come from. I believe in the way my coaches taught me and what they instilled in me as a player.’’

Ironically, Devine’s mentor at W-H, Bob Bancroft, is trying to rebuild the program at Pembroke this fall. In his run at Whitman-Hanson from 1983 to 2001, Bancroft led the Panthers to 16 league championships, including 12 in a row. Pembroke, on the other hand, has won a combined five games in the last three seasons, including going 3-8 last year.

Bancroft, who struggled to restore the winning ways in his first three years at W-H, said the biggest difference at Pembroke is that the players don’t have a winning foundation to fall back on or to compete with.

“Whitman-Hanson had a history,’’ Bancroft said. “People in town liked football, attended games. They had a base. These kids are creating their own, which is hard but also fun for them. Down the road, they don’t’ have to say someone else built it; they can say they built it.’’

Once the program is built, however, it’s difficult to sustain.

Plymouth South endured a decade of losing before Scott Fry came on board and turned the program in the right direction. South went 7-4 in his third season, followed by 8-3 and 7-4 marks before dropping to 2-9.

“I look at some of the programs that have been consistent year in and year out and it is amazing when you have a program like that,’’ Fry said. “It’s very difficult. It’s not like college, where you can recruit.’’

Finding players willing to work year-round and provide senior leadership is a cycle that is bound to break every few seasons.

“As a coaching staff, you have to get through those tough times,’’ said Scituate’s Devine. “Kids go through bad years. But getting kids to still believe in the program and the coaches during those seasons, those are the coaches that are most successful.’’

One of the biggest traps teams fall into, according to Bancroft, is being too loyal to seniors.

“We try to give seniors the first look if they’ve been on three years,’’ Bancroft said. “But if they aren’t the best people, you gotta be able to go ahead and make a decision to get the best 11 or 20 guys on the field.’’

Bancroft taught Devine how to create constant competition among players regardless of grade levels, making everyone better and staving off complacency among upperclassmen who think their job is safe and underclassmen who think they have to wait their turn.

Devine has taken to printing players’ names on the back of practice jerseys.

“It doesn’t say senior, junior, or sophomore on the back of your shirt; it just says your name and number,’’ he told the players.

“My coaches do not just want to play seniors; we want to play the best players because the success of the program depends on it.’’

Bancroft believes in creating competition at each position.

“A player may not start the game but he may feel like he played a full game,’’ he said. “We might not have had a 1,000-yard rusher [at W-H] or Parade All-Americans but we knew we’d have football teams on the top of the list every year. But kids have to buy into that and that’s tough to do.

Hanover’s players bought into King’s system wholeheartedly last season. But it helped that a core group of juniors had an allergic reaction to losing. Playing together since third grade, they only lost two games in eight seasons together.

“Once we realized we could do it, it became natural,’’ Shisler said.

They’ll try to kick off another successful run tomorrow night, in the season opener at Abington.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Daily News Tribune
Posted Sep 06, 2009 @ 11:21 PM

WALTHAM — While 3,500 fans were either filing out of the stadium or rekindling temporarily paused tailgate parties, Thom Boerman's addressed his new football team.

``Excellent job, character win,'' he said with the game ball tucked under his right arm after a 43-17 victory against Curry College on Friday night. ``You came out in the second half and played an excellent half of football - 2-0, give yourselves a hand.''

The longtime assistant to retired Bentley coach Peter Yetten was basking in the glow of a full moon and the Friday night lights for the first time of the evening - his first home game as the program's head coach.

All day, everyone had asked about the differences between being the head of football operations/defensive coordinator and the head man.

``I wish I could articulate it,'' he said before doing exactly that. ``Being on the sideline so long, with some of the same guys, it's not totally unique to me. But there is pressure. I have to make all the decisions. It's different in that regard. But it's the same old sideline. It's the same old football team. From that perspective, I'm used to it.''

The coach said he could not take in the significance of the night until late in the ballgame.

``We couldn't let them stay in the game,'' said Boerman, whose team is 2-0 for the first time in five years. ``You never relax. Toward the end, I was feeling pretty good.''

He was pretty angry midway through the third quarter when Curry took advantage of a fumbled punt and cut the Bentley lead to 22-17. Up to that point, the Falcons, who led the nation in turnovers last season, had managed to go turnover free.

Luckily for Bentley, junior quarterback Bryant Johnson led the Falcons to 21 points in the final five minutes of the third, capping a career-best 351-yard, four-touchdown performance, including three TD passes to senior Wade Critides. The Wayland native also had a career night, snagging six receptions for 174 yards, including a 67-yarder on Bentley's first play from scrimmage that led to a 7-7 tie.

``It's a great win,'' said Johnson, clutching the game ball under his arm, his first ever at Bentley. ``(Going) 2-0 is huge for us going into the league schedule. We're right where we want to be. It gives us confidence going into league play.''

Johnson and Boerman met several times over the offseason to discuss the upcoming season and determined the team's commitment level needed a lift. They instituted 6 a.m. weightlifting sessions and saw an immediate impact. They also had instant rapport given the fact that they are both old hands in new hats.

``We've definitely been here, though not quite in the same roles,'' said Johnson, a backup last year. ``We both are learning on the go. There's a lot of communication, a lot of talking it out. We have a great relationship.''

Senior running back Luis Cotto (Waltham High) - who on Friday rushed for 12 yards more than the two he needed to move into ninth place on the school's rushing list - has a bit of a different relationship with the old coach and new boss.

``He's definitely a defensive guy, he does come over and chirp at you but then he's right back with the defense,'' Cotto said. ``It's kind of cool. You don't have the head coach breathing down your neck 24/7. It stinks for the defense.''

Cotto and his backfield mates only had 31 yards rushing as the Falcons took a 22-10 lead into halftime. Boerman was uneasy about the lack of balance because he's trying to wean the Falcons off a high-flying aerial attack and ground them in the run game.

``At halftime, I told (our offensive coordinator) I want to run the ball,'' said Boerman, whose team had exploited Curry's man-to-man defense all game. ``He said, `Coach, it's a matter of taking what they give up.' (But) I do want more balance in our offensive attack.''

The Falcons did finish with 92 rushing yards to go along with their 351 passing yards - a sign that some consensus had been reached in the second half on the sideline, where the new decision maker feels right at home.

``To me he's been on the staff a while so nothing is really new,'' Cotto said. ``The only thing that's different is Coach Yetten is not walking up and down the sideline. Other than that, it's the same old sideline.''

Thursday, September 3, 2009


Globe South Sports

Kicking it up

at college level


Doug MacCallum, senior forward at St. Joseph’s College in Standish, Maine, heads the ball. Doug MacCallum, senior forward at St. Joseph’s College in Standish, Maine, heads the ball. (David Bates)

By Justin A. Rice
Globe Correspondent / September 3, 2009

Ken Carlin always knew Doug MacCallum had the capacity to be a goal scorer. Four years ago, though, he didn’t have an opening for MacCallum in the starting lineup of his Hingham High boys’ soccer team.

Eight players from MacCallum’s senior class of 2005 went on to play at least one year of college soccer, including Colin Lincoln (University of Richmond), Sean Fitzmaurice (Navy), and Jesse Rezende (Northeastern).

On other teams, MacCallum “would have been their star and on our team in other years he would’ve been our star,’’ said the 11-year coach. “We just happened to be extremely loaded in [2004].

“That year my second team could have beaten most teams, one of those very rare teams that was just loaded with talent. He had a lot of talent.’’

MacCallum is now the unquestioned star as a senior forward at St. Joseph’s College in Standish, Maine. He netted a team-high 15 goals last fall and entered Tuesday’s season opener against Framingham State as the program leader in career goals (26). And his 59 career points were one shy of the school mark.

“I always felt like I had the ability,’’ said MacCallum, who scored five goals, with three assists, as a senior at Hingham, when the Harbormen captured the program’s first South Sectional title. “My high school team was just fantastic. We had such a great squad there; that’s more why I didn’t get playing time.’’

The former high school reserve set the new goal-scoring mark at St. Joe’s in the Greater Northeastern Athletic Conference championship game last fall. The Monks trailed Norwich, 2-0, when senior captain Kevin Melega assisted on MacCallum’s goal in the 75th minute. Melega grabbed the ball out of the net and brought it to midfield.

“It was kind of bittersweet actually; I couldn’t score another one and we ended up losing,’’ MacCallum said of his record-setting goal, which he doesn’t remember the team taking much pause to acknowledge after its 12-7-3 season.

There’s no time for reflection now, either. MacCallum has placed himself squarely on the radar screen of all of his opponents.

“He’s going to draw a lot of attention, so we asked him to create space, create opportunities for others,’’ first-year coach Steven Babineau said. “We had that conversation with him early and told him not to feel pressure to score as many goals as last year. He has taken that task on and shown, in the week and a half I’ve been here, he’s willing to work at that and help us in another area.’’

MacCallum’s record wasn’t the team’s only milestone last season. Junior defender Joseph Happnie of Rockland helped the defense record the lowest goals-against average (.87) in program history, as well as allowing the fewest goals (20) and recording the most shutouts (10).

Happnie also is a late bloomer. He didn’t pick up the sport until his senior year at Rockland High so it was comforting to have a player from the area on the squad when he arrived as a walk-on.

“He’s pretty outgoing and I’m pretty reserved,’’ Happnie said of MacCallum. “He made the effort to reach out to me and make me feel welcome.’’

Babineau is not surprised that two players who weren’t stars in high school have such a large capacity for adaptation.

“Someone who comes into a program and doesn’t step on the field right away has an understanding that ‘I need to get better at certain areas; I’m going to work at this,’ ’’ Babineau said.

On the other hand, Carlin wasn’t surprised to see MacCallum score six goals in his first season at St. Joe’s and add another five as a sophomore.

“A lot of high school teams play kick and run; we like to pride ourselves in possession soccer and team skills,’’ said Carlin, who is friends with MacCallum’s stepfather, Fouad Alzaibak, the president of the Galway Rovers soccer club. His brother, Alex Alzaibak, is a sophomore goalkeeper at Hingham High.

“It’s perfect: I go out and hang shots on him and get him ready for his season,’’ MacCallum said. “He does pretty well. He’s pretty talented back there. I’ve been shooting on him since he was young. Me and my older brother [Rob MacCallum] have been shooting on him since he was young. He’s definitely a shot stopper.’’

A former player at Nichols College, Rob MacCallum works for Real Salt Lake of Major League Soccer. Doug MacCallum is a communications major but is unsure what he wants to do after college.

“That would be fantastic, stay in the game anyway I can,’’ he says of trying to work in the MLS.

If McCallum continues to improve at the clip he has, however, there might just be a future for him on the field.

“He was always a talented player,’’ Carlin said. “He wasn’t perhaps always the first one [on my team] but he got stronger, bigger, and much sturdier. He filled out. He’s a guy that loves the game and keeps getting better and better.’’