If the Hopkinton boys soccer team hopes to defend its state crown, coach Scott Zipke said his players must play much more consistently than they did late in the regular season.

“I think they’re ready to go, but they know they’ve got a tough road, which they created themselves by not winning some games that they should have,” said Zipke. “It was good to see them come out hard and go to the ball. They had a sense of urgency that I haven’t seen recently.”

On Monday, Oct. 22, the Hawks opened tournament play by defeating visiting 13- seed Newmarket 6-0 behind scoring contributions from seven different players.

Junior Travis Fuglestad scored early with a low shot to the left post that he sneaked past the opponent’s goal keeper.

Freshman Kris Abildgaard followed by knocking in a cross from senior Matt Demers to put the locals ahead 2-0 at the half.

Demers scored first in the second half off a sleek pass from senior Joe Dammann and senior Dan Forrester notched the Hawks next two goals thanks to assists from Fuglestad and senior Steve Olimpio.

David Wood capped the scoring when he netted Hopkinton’s sixth goal midway through the second half.

But it hasn’t always looked so easy for the defending champs.

After winning their first 10 games in 2007, the Hawks finished out the season 2-2-2, nearly knocking themselves out of the top four spots in Class M.

And though he knows his team could have finished the regular season stronger, Zipke said he is happy to have earned the fourth seed and two home games to start the postseason and hopes to see last year’s experience pay dividends this time around.

“It remains to be seen. You know, it’s one of those things where I don’t want to forget about last year. It’s not like, ‘the heck with it, let’s move on.’ So I think they know what it takes to win the tournament.

They won an overtime game against Campell, they came back against Gilford (in the 2006 championship) and I think there are a lot of guys on the team that learned from that,” said Zipke. “Although I don’t think we used it much today, in the future if we are behind, I’m going to expect these guys to fight and manage a comeback.”

Hopkinton hosts Belmont in the second round of the Class M tournament on Friday, Oct. 26, at 3:30 p.m.

The two squads finished tied for fourth in the standings with identical 12-2-2 records.