All Newburyport has to do is look back to last year.
Legitimately, the Clippers have the ability to write the same story.
A year ago, in the Division 1 state tournament, Newton North came into it a 5-win team seeded way down at No. 31. The Tigers were just mere tenths of a percentage point away from being out of the playoffs entirely, but ended up going on an absolutely magical run to win the State Championship.
Again, as the No. 31 seed.
Well, guess what Newburyport is in its first year up in Division 2?
The official MIAA playoff brackets were released on Saturday afternoon, and the Clippers (11-5-2) will hope to write their own Cinderella story as the No. 31 seed. Jack Burns, Devante Bucchiere, Sean Gasbarro, Grady Smith and the Clippers will host No. 34 North High in the preliminary round on Monday at 6 p.m.
But it’s not wrong to say that Newburyport isn’t your “typical” No. 31 seed. The Clippers have gone 11-2-1 over their last 14 games, with a defense led by Smith, Danny Lopez, Shea Cook, Federico Peruzzi, Max Coffin and Josh Sucheki holding opponents to just 9 goals during that stretch. They only lost to Masconomet (No. 6 in D2) by a goal, then just last Wednesday earned a 1-1 draw against 16-win Beverly (No. 16 in D1).
Newburyport is our only local boys soccer team to qualify for the playoffs.
Aiden Napolitano, Jayden Pabst, Jake LaCroix and Pentucket (7-8-3) won more games than the previous two years combined (6), but finished ranked No. 39 in Division 3 and one win short of automatically qualifying via the .500 rule. Then in Division 4, both Amesbury (4-10-4) and Georgetown (7-9-2) dropped significantly over the course of the final two rankings updates, having been projected in the field as currently as last Friday.
Here are the complete brackets for each division including a local team.
Division 2
Seeding: 1. Oliver Ames (12-1-3); 2. Northampton (13-0-5); 3. Longmeadow (12-1-6); 4. Duxbury (14-3-1); 5. Holliston (11-3-4); 6. Masconomet (16-2-0); 7. King Philip (9-4-5); 8. Dartmouth (9-5-2); 9. Hingham (13-3-3); 10. Ashland (9-3-6); 11. West Springfield (7-2-9); 12. Milford (8-3-7); 13. Stoughton (9-5-3); 14. Barnstable (10-5-3); 15. Mansfield (7-8-3); 16. Sharon (6-5-5); 17. Minnechaug (7-4-7); 18. Westwood (8-4-6);
19. Bedford (7-7-4); 20. Doherty Memorial (8-6-4); 21. Somerset Berkley (12-5-1); 22. Nashoba Regional (9-1-8); 23. Wayland (5-7-4); 24. Marblehead (11-5-2); 25. Marshfield (7-6-4); 26. Agawam (5-5-8); 27. Chelsea (12-4-2); 28. Milton (5-10-3); 29. Canton (6-6-6); 30. Reading (8-5-3); 31. NEWBURYPORT (11-5-2); 32. Revere (9-3-5); 33. Southeastern (14-2-1); 34. North High (8-5-5); 35. Wakefield (8-5-4); 36. Archbishop Williams (8-6-4); 37. Melrose (8-8-2); 38. Danvers (8-7-3); 39. Middleborough (7-5-6)
Local Preliminary Round Games
Monday, Nov. 3rd
No. 34 North High at No. 31 Newburyport, 6 p.m.