BY MATT STOUT
As Steve Porter circled the Pelham net during the first quarter of the Hopkinton boys lacrosse team’s 14-9 win on April 25, the Hawks’ senior attackman squared up to the right post, watched his defender drift from him and fired a bullet past the opposing goalkeeper for one of six goals on the day.
The sequence, no doubt a familiar one for the squad’s leading scorer, also provided a clear picture of Hopkinton thus far this season: dangerous, successful, at times dominant – and largely untested.
Such is the state of the Hawks, now at 5-0 entering a home date with John Stark on Wednesday, May 2.
The first part of the 2007 campaign has gone off without a hitch, with Hopkinton outscoring teams 62-31, and it’s also come with little challenge.
None of the Hawks’ first five opponents rank in the top half of the Division-III standings come mid-week, and despite the lopsided totals, they feel like they can be better in most aspects of the game. And they’ll need to be, coach Doug Maynard said, when the league’s other top teams come calling, starting with defending champion Kearsarge on Monday, May 7.
“That’s what I keep reinforcing in practice and everywhere else,” Maynard said. “(During the preseason) we scrimmaged against Brady, who is a good team, and I want them to do stuff that’s going to work against Brady, rather than stuff that’s going to do well against these teams we’ve been playing here.”
By no means did Maynard intend to belittle the teams Hopkinton has played,. But they, unlike Portsmouth, Laconia and Merrimack Valley, can’t exploit the areas the coach said his team needs to improve.
Those include basic concepts – grabbing ground balls and passing – to playing better team defense in front of first-year varsity goalies Graham Crews and Bryan Libby, who for now are still competing for the fulltime position.
Hopkinton has obviously done many things well, including scoring and putting teams away early. The Hawks went up 10-0 after one quarter in their opener against Kingswood and since, have averaged a five-goal lead or better at halftime.
But that doesn’t mean everything looks as clean as their win-loss total.
“We haven’t really reached our potential like we should,” said Porter, who leads the team with 38 points entering Wednesday. “We’re going to be facing some tough teams coming up, and we can’t play like we have been.
“But we’re definitely aware of that now,” he continued. “Once we reach that first (tough) opponent, we’ll be in for an awakening, but I think we can come out on top if we can keep practicing hard and fixing our mistakes.”
Hopkinton has many strong players it can turn to, including Porter, defenseman Nate Mosseau and David Wood and others such as Deacon Blue, Dave Roberts, Zac Sink and Doug Meyer.
While Meyer hasn’t provided the points like Blue, who has two three-point games, or Sink, who scored a hat trick along with Joe Dammann against Kingswood, Maynard said the junior has worked the hardest, does all the dirty work and “has probably been our best midfielder.”
The Hawks need more of the same from him and everyone else.
“There’s always room for improvement,” Porter said.