A heartbreaking home loss in the round of 32 to #22 Advanced Math and Science Academy (AMSA) knocks out the #11 Green Wave team from the MIAA Division 4 boys soccer tournament by a score of 3-2. The Green Wave team finished the year with a regular season record of 10-3-5 (W-L-T) and were led by senior captains Max Lindo and Aiden Grafton, and junior captain David Byrne.

In this year’s edition of Senior Night at Abington High School, the Green Wave head coach, Mr. Claus, introduced all 7 seniors, namely: captains Max Lindo and Aiden Grafton, as well as Luiz Alvarez, Damian Monteiro, Lukas Dias, Aidan McCann, and Ray Salmon. Then the teams huddled up on the field to go over some final things before kickoff. The ref blew the whistle and the game kicked off . The final score of the game was 7-2 in Abington’s favor following stellar performances from the entire team especially from Aiden Grafton (3 goals, 3 assists), and Max Lindo (2 goals, 2 assists); as well as 1 goal, 1 assist from Dimitri St. Paul, 1 goal from Ray Salmon and 1 assist from Sam Almeida.

The Green Wave were led all year in the heart of midfield by Max and Aiden as they finished with a combined 33 goals, and 30 assists on the year with Max having 15 goals, 19 assists, and Aiden having 18 goals, 11 assists. Out of those 30 combined assists, 14 of them were to each other. They were both selected to be on the South Shore all-star team with defenders Cole Lindo and Matthew Sullivan. Max and Aiden were further selected to Eastern Massachusetts and Massachusetts State all-star teams.

Some big games this year were an eight-minute end of game comeback to tie from down 3 away in Scituate in the first game of the year; a 1-0 home win against rivals Rockland and 2-1 away win at D1 Bridgewater-Raynham, both in late September; a 5-5 away shootout with rivals Rockland away from home, and a 2-0 home win in a tournament rematch from last year against Millbury, both in mid-October; and finishing the regular season in late October with a 7-2 win on Senior Night, a 6-1 win away in Hull, finally getting points of Cohasset, at home with a 1-1 tie; and a 2-1 win away at Whitman-Hanson on Whitman-Hanson’s senior night.

Notable single game performances to mention: a Calcano hattrick with both Aiden and Nathan Calcano combining for 3 goals away in Mashpee; Max Lindo having a hattrick of assists to go along with a goal at home against Hull as well as having 2 goals and four assists in the same game as an Enzo de Souza hattrick, with Enzo scoring four goals, in a 9-2 home win over Randolph; Max Lindo having a part to play in all 6 goals beating Middleboro 6-0 and coming away with 3 goals and 3 assists; and Aiden Grafton scoring the only goal in the home win over Rockland, while having 3 goals and 3 assists on Senior Night and 4 goals in Hull in the same week.

It has been an honor to play with teammates who are willing to give it their all, pick people up when they are down, and motivate each other to do their best. I have been in the high school program for all 4 years and have loved every moment of it. Scoring on Senior Night was the culmination of everything I have worked toward these four years. I was playing on the junior varsity team for the first 3 years, and have noticed the difference this year in game speed and work ethic between the junior varsity and varsity teams. I have been playing soccer since second grade and I am glad I continued to play it throughout high school, even with some low moments in between. My freshman year, the team made it to the playoffs for the first time in 8 years, on the basis of strength of schedule, around 25 goals as a team and a 5-10-3 (W-L-T) record, and our first game in 8 years was in the play-in round. We won that game, and had to take a two-hour bus ride to Frontier Regional in Deerfield, just north of Amherst. Now as seniors who have been here for all 4 years, we have made it to the playoffs all 4 years and Abington has had a playoff record of 3-4 (W-L), with 4 home games in those four years. We have also gone from scoring the said around 25 goals during freshman year, to numbers in the 60s in the past three years. We have graduated some amazing players this year, as well as in years past, and in the future. I am so excited to see how this program develops in the next few years.