Bay State Conference - boys soccer 2014

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Weymouth

Weymouth tied silver Lake and Needham last year who were the south finalist and have most of their team returning so they have potential but losing that goalie is a huge loss. I could see them as a dark horse team. And where did the Brookline goalie transfer to?

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Weymouth tied silver Lake and Needham last year who were the south finalist and have most of their team returning so they have potential but losing that goalie is a huge loss. I could see them as a dark horse team. And where did the Brookline goalie transfer to?

A prior post was really down on Weymouth, but graduation of that keeper was not as significant as loss of the prior keeper. Other teams probably had greater graduation losses, so yeah, maybe Weymouth could move up a bit. Like others, can they score in this league? Hard to move up much with a lot of nil-nil results.

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Norwood

They had 1 player who was overrated- just 1....Very much disagree about the importance of stars. Natick and Norwood are a couple who had DAP players on the team in recent years, but still were poor teams. Weymouth had their allstate keeper and were a .500 team. Of course having top players helps, but it's not enough, because good opponents can take away a good player or two. Top teams are technically sound all over the field, with a couple subs too.[/QUOTE]

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A prior post was really down on Weymouth, but graduation of that keeper was not as significant as loss of the prior keeper. Other teams probably had greater graduation losses, so yeah, maybe Weymouth could move up a bit. Like others, can they score in this league? Hard to move up much with a lot of nil-nil results.

Weymouth didn't graduate any scoring threats I'm pretty sure and return they're top threat at foward.

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Braintree should be good this year they return a pretty good keeper and the conferences leading scorer

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Weymouth didn't graduate any scoring threats I'm pretty sure and return they're top threat at foward.

The question is whether those threats are threatening enough. Weymouth scored 24 goals in 20 games last year. Optimistically, didn't their top forward miss a few games? Pessimistically, 10 of those goals were in wipeouts of Milton and Newton North, each of which only won 2 league games. Best offensive result was probably 2-1 win v Framingham.

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The probably with Newton and a few other rich towns is that the really skilled players have the endless funds needed to train and often land in private schools or playing for the Revs etc....losing a couple of STUDS wiLl ruin a program. Studs win at HS- having a supporting cast is only a small part of winning- no stud=no championship!

QUOTE=Unregistered;1343619]All the teams merit some recognition. And particularly the small schools that have losing records largely due to having to play bigger schools a big majority of the time, several of them twice as big. As a group, the d2s have shown that they're competitive when playing schools their own size. That's a lot better than the Newtons, both of which are now losing regularly despite their enrollment advantage.

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But Newton is in leagues with the towns you are talking about, so it should affect those other towns just as much. It's not a reason for the newton HSs to struggle while some of the others also have soccer-playing students going to private schools or playing club only. Also, if this theory were true, you would expect Bay State and Dual County to fall behind as far as being regarded as among the strongest leagues, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

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Braintree should be good this year they return a pretty good keeper and the conferences leading scorer

Yeah, their keeper was good. Assume that's RM who was leading scorer? Didn't realize he led league. Thought DK was their best player, and he's graduated. But other schools had bigger losses, so Braintree could move up. Still think Needham's returnees make them the favorite, but could Braintree finish ahead of Brookline, Framingham and Weymouth among the big schools? Maybe. Since they had a losing league record last year and best player graduated, realistically their improvement should be modest, like from 7 league wins to maybe 9, which last year was enough for 2d in their division.

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Yeah, their keeper was good. Assume that's RM who was leading scorer? Didn't realize he led league. Thought DK was their best player, and he's graduated. But other schools had bigger losses, so Braintree could move up. Still think Needham's returnees make them the favorite, but could Braintree finish ahead of Brookline, Framingham and Weymouth among the big schools? Maybe. Since they had a losing league record last year and best player graduated, realistically their improvement should be modest, like from 7 league wins to maybe 9, which last year was enough for 2d in their division.

It was B.G. Who led the league last year. And DK was there best player but they had a decent jv team I believe which will help fill spots

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It was B.G. Who led the league last year. And DK was there best player but they had a decent jv team I believe which will help fill spots

So is RM back this fall, too?

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So is RM back this fall, too?

He's back to so they should be on the upside

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So is RM back this fall, too?

He was listed as a senior by the Patriot-Ledger, but maybe that's a mistake

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He was listed as a senior by the Patriot-Ledger, but maybe that's a mistake

My mistake RM was a senior

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I think DK will be a pretty substantial loss for Braintree. When you look at where that program was before the last 5 years, it came a long way. And DK was a pretty big part in all of their long tourney runs over the last 4 years. They've had several other quality players recently but he was there throughout.

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I think DK will be a pretty substantial loss for Braintree. When you look at where that program was before the last 5 years, it came a long way. And DK was a pretty big part in all of their long tourney runs over the last 4 years. They've had several other quality players recently but he was there throughout.

True, but he was also there for their very short tourney run last year, which seemed like their best team over his career. Hard to say if last year should be weighed more, or the year before when they managed an upset or two. Definitely an all-conference first-teamer, though the league doesn't make that distinction. Tend to think that the first thing is to have at least 11 talented players, and if you have that, then the best player who scores the most goals gets touted, probably too much. Overlook the talent around him, and you have a 4-win team. For 2014, hard to tell if Braintree has that breadth of talent to have a winning league record, or if they'll again ride their no conference record to a tourney berth.