BY RYAN O'CONNOR

If Winnisquam was Cinderella, then Hopkinton refused to be Prince Charming, smashing her glass slipper and leaving its own 3-0 footprint instead.

In the Class M boys soccer championship on Monday, Nov. 6, the fourth-seeded Hawks allowed their opponent to hang around just long enough to make the contest interesting – roughly 62 minutes – before dashing all remaining Winnisquam hope in a minute and a half.

Though the first half’s only tally was a Steve Olimpio header off a Travis Kuster cross, Hopkinton created separation with just more than 18 minutes remaining in the second half when Travis Fuglestad, from roughly 15 yards out, redirected a Ricardo Colonna assist past a diving Winnisquam goaltender.

Then, at 16:41, Doug Fuller received a David Wood pass, juked two Bears defenders and sent a low liner across the goal, ricocheting the ball off the right post and into the back of the net for the exclamation point.

Hawks coach Scott Zipke said it is a credit to his players’ mentality that they avoided allowing a storybook matchup between an upstart No. 11-seed and the defending state champs to stand in the way of another Class M crown.

“My guys are super intelligent, and they knew they had to come in here and play hard and were smart enough to enact the game plan and ignore all the hype,” he said. “Once they got through (No. 1) Gilford (in the semifinal) they might as well have been the No. 1 seed, so I’m not sure there was a chip on their shoulder today. They just displayed pure soccer intelligence out there.”

In fact, Winnisquam, which had received two yellow cards all season, was hit with five penalties in the contest, something Bears coach Amy Dutton said is a testament to the physical play of a well-balanced Hopkinton squad with great speed.

Though Zipke couldn’t decide which championship tasted sweeter, he acknowledged the 2007 edition had to chew a little harder.

“This year, the whole year has been a little bit more special. Every game has been a tournament atmosphere and everyone’s been gunning for us, so to come in and be able to pull off the back-to-back is really something,” he said. “Last year, we were coming in and we were (Winnisquam). We didn’t have the pressure on us, and we just gave it our all and happened to win.

This year, with a price on our head like that, I couldn’t be more proud of the way my guys played today.”