Spartans rebounding from tough times

MILFORD – When Mark Hamilton scored the game-winning goal Tuesday for the Milford High School boys soccer team, Mike Mitchell was the first one there to celebrate with his teammate.

The two seniors smiled as Mitchell embraced Hamilton and they jubilantly ran back to midfield, and the rest of the Spartans.

A year ago, what took place at the end of Milford’s 2-1 win over Sanborn never would have happened.

After graduating more than a dozen players for two straight years, and bringing in not nearly enough to make up for it, Milford coach Jim Tallarico was in danger of not having enough players to field a team in 2009. The coach and his players recruited hard to convince more students to come out for the team and were successful enough to play the year. The Spartans went 1-15 but even more players came out for the 2010 season.

More than 40 players came out for Milford this fall, including 15 freshmen, and five seniors who had never played high school soccer before.

Mitchell is one of those seniors, who joined Hamilton, one of two seniors who were on the team before this season.

“Some were football players who decided to play soccer, some never did fall sports and they decided to,” Tallarico said of the new seniors. “We’re going to be graduating seven or eight players, but only two have been with the program a long time. We’re still rebuilding, but the future looks good. We have a fairly large junior class. From what I see, we should continue to get better.”

[For more photos of the Milford soccer team, go here.]

In the past, soccer players had come into the high school with experience playing in the MCAA’s travel program. But the program ended and the last of the players who participated in it graduated from high school a few years ago.

“What we’re seeing now, the middle school is starting to establish their programs,” Tallarico said. “They’re starting to send us a more constant stream of players. The senior class now, that year only one kid came up. The year after that, we only had two or three kids come up. Now as the middle school is having 20 kids on the roster, there are six or seven middle school players that are coming up and staying in the program.”

With so many players new to the game, the Spartans are still going through some growing pains this season. After starting the season 0-6-1, Milford has won three of its last four, including Tuesday’s win, and with five games remaining, the Spartans still have an outside shot at the Division II playoffs.

“We are still learning how to play as a team,” Tallarico said. “We figure we need to win two out of our last five games and pray that some other teams lose.”

Milford fell behind 1-0 in the first half on Tuesday, but tied the game early in the second half on a header by Kevin Poulter. The Spartans had plenty of opportunities in the second half – including a penalty kick by Wes Walker that went wide left and another shot by Walker that went off a post – before Hamilton scored the game-winner with about two minutes left.

“We were kind of helter skelter,” Tallarico said. “We’ve had better games, but we’ve had worse games. A win is a win and we’ll be glad to take it. We’re doing better defensively as a team.”

The Spartans finish up the season with games at Goffstown, Con-Val and Souhegan and home games against Trinity and Hanover. Milford next plays on the road against the Grizzlies on Friday.