By Christopher Tremblay, Staff Sports Writer

When Will Parker entered Hopedale Junior /Senior High School, he found himself playing both soccer and baseball on the junior varsity teams. 

He made the tough decision that he was going to forgo playing soccer further so that he could concentrated on his baseball career.

But when the soccer team came calling for his help, Parker once again laced up his cleats to help out his fellow classmates.

“Baseball is my main sport, I’ve been playing it my entire life; it’s my passion and definitely, in my personal opinion, my dominant sport,” Parker said. “I decided to come back to soccer last year, my junior year, when my friends begged for my help. They knew they weren’t going to have a goalie this year (their senior campaign), so they convinced me to try out.”

Soccer Coach Greg LaBossiere was glad that his team took it upon themselves to recruit Parker, who has committed to play baseball for the Division 1 West Point Black Knights in New York. 

“The team knew that we were not going to have a goalie come their senior season, so a couple of his buddies approached him to come out for the team last year,” the Blue Raider Coach said. “I knew about him as I teach in the Hopedale School system, but he really blew me away with his leadership skills and the way that he competes.”

As a first year starting goalie, Parker helped lead the Blue Raiders to a 9-4-1 regular season and a chance to play in the Central Mass Tournament. With no goalie coach on the Hopedale sidelines, LaBossiere only knew the basics of the position, but Parker was not only coachable, he picked things up quickly and feels comfortable playing the position.

In addition to the Coach giving him some pointers, it was the team that helped Parker to get ready to play his new position on the varsity level for the first time.

“Before the tryouts, the team worked with me, and I attended the captains’ practices so that I would be ready. My first year I was the team’s back-up and played halves here and there,” Parker said. “This year I was the starting goalie and was a little rusty to begin the season; I had played the field and was used to doing a lot of passing, goalie is a whole new position.”

Friends and teammates DJ Tucker (attack and midfielder) and Steven Marchionni (center defensive mid) had the pleasure of getting Parker ready for his debut.

“They just kept taking shots on me from all different angles so that I could get used to the position. I felt they got me prepared for the most part, but I was still unsure of my diving; it took me a while to learn it because each time I did it I would get turf burn. Eventually I just learned to accept it,” the new goalie said. “Luckily, I’m pretty athletic and after a few weeks, I was pretty used to playing the position, although I still found diving to be a problem.”

Prior to his senior season getting underway, Parker continued to go about his normal baseball routines and workouts to get ready. He attended captains’ practices once again, but more seriously as he knew that he had to be prepared for the other 12 seniors as it meant a lot to them being their final year on the field together. 

Parker entered the season looking to be the best keeper that he possibly could be, not only for himself but the rest of the team. He wasn’t worried about being a captain as that was not his type of thing. His first varsity start was typical of a first-time varsity starter.

“That first game I had the classic case of the nerves before the game,” he said. “But I feel it was more anxiousness and excitement more than anything else. By my second game I was all right.”

Although the senior has made some first-year mistakes, overall the coach is quite pleased with his goalie’s performance.

“Honestly, it’s expected of him to make some mistakes here and there, but it hasn’t been anything that has hurt us. He has come up big when we needed him to and he had a phenomenal game against Ashland (a 1-0 win),” LaBossiere said. “He had 4 or 5 shutouts, which is amazing for a first-year goalie, I think that his athleticism definitely helped, and he worked extremely hard to get ready for the season. He came in physically fit and throughout the season Dual Valley Coaches would continuously come up to me and ask where he came from.”

Parker, despite being the last line of defense in front of the net, feels the credit is not due to him, but his teammates. And in addition to having a talent group around him he has gotten to play with friend and Hopedale’s sophomore back-up goalie Alex Lannibios.

“This year, skillwise, has been one of the better teams that Hopedale has put on the soccer field, and I was glad to play alongside all these skilled athletes,” Parker said. “The defense in front of me has definitely been helpful in getting me through the season. It has been a pleasure to help the team out, but I have enjoyed every single minute of it and to have Alex, who has been a friend and neighbor for 12 years, was great.”

What the future holds for Parker in the terms of soccer is undetermined at this point as baseball is still his top priority, but one never knows.

“I’ll see after this year if I ever play soccer again, as baseball is my true passion and love,” he said. “But you never know what will happen down the road.”

Hopedale entered the Division 4 Central Mass Athletic Directors Association (CMADA) boys’ soccer tournament as the number one seed. The Blue Raiders took out Narragansett 6-0 behind the shutout performance of Parker and Lannibios splitting the goaltending duties. In the next round Parker continued his mastery of the goal by shutting out West Boylston 3-0 leading the Blue Raiders into the Finals where they defeated Whitinsville-Christian 4-1 for the CMADA Division 4 Championship.