Athletes of the Week: Dowling & Abdalla

Aimee Dowling
McCann Tech

The McCann Tech girls soccer coach is a little envious of his leading scorer.

"Monique [Martel] is probably the best player in our Tri-County league, and she's a good distributor," Mike Dowling said. "And when you have someone like that and [Allie] Gibeau and [Jordan] Budaj who are juniors. Then I have sophomore Natalie Diesz and a senior, Hannah Woods on the other wing.

"It's such a complementary cast. I would like to play center forward with those girls passing."

Instead, the honor of playing center forward on the Hornets belongs to Aimee Dowling, a sophomore and the team's leading scorer with 14 goals and seven assists through 13 games.

Mike Dowling is not taking anything away from the sophomore who happens to be his daughter.

It's no coincidence that the daughter of a veteran coach happens to be McCann's most prolific scorer this fall.

"She's in the right place at the right time, and i think that comes from just being involved in soccer since she was 4," he said. "She's been coming to McCann practices for 13 years. She came every day with me. So she knows how to play the position."

Mike Dowling credited Aimee's hard work in the off-season, especially with her brother, Brian. Aimee also credited her brother with getting her ready for this season and pointed to her teammates for the Hornets' success.

"I think it's been a lot of passing and talking," she said. "We've been working a lot on that since the beginning of the season, and it's gtting better as the games go on."



Michael Abdalla
Lenox

The Lenox boys soccer team had a good week. Michael Abdalla had a great one.

On Columbus Day, the Millionaires knocked off league-leading Pittsfield on the road, and Abdalla had the winning goal.

Three days later, Lenox downed Division 4 contender Westfield Tech, 6-2, and Abdalla scored four straight goals.

After his "hat trick plus one," Abdalla low-keyed the accomplishment.

"It's a good confidence-booster, but ultimately, I've got to just keep working on my game so I get better and better," he said.

Lenox coach Dave Pugh has seen Abdalla's confidence grow in the last 11 months or so.

"He's a kid last year in a [Western Mass] semi-final who missed a shot, and he had his head down over that," Pugh said. "He had his head down for a long time. This year, he came back very positive.

"I've been extremely impressed with his focus. When he gets an opportunity to shoot, he's been very good putting he ball on goal and hitting good hard shots.

"I think today was his 15th goal of the season, so it doesn't surprise me."