In an Aug. 19 boys soccer match against Trinity, Wellington senior Henry Abram and his teammates trailed, 4-3, at halftime. Abram had already scored two goals in the opening half but it wasn’t enough 40 minutes into the contest.
There were still 40 more minutes to go, and Abram made the most of them. He scored five second-half goals and added an assist as the Dukes rallied to a 9-5 win. At the end of it all, Abram had posted seven goals, an assist on a late goal to Nadia Greer and racked up 15 points.
“Going into the half, I was a bit upset and frustrated because we were down (at the time),” Abram said. “I just didn’t feel like I was playing my best and I felt like our team wasn’t playing our best. When I went out in the second half, I tried to set a solid tone and try to pick up the pace of our team to play a lot better and win the game.”
The fourth-year player had never scored seven goals in one single game, a happy moment for Abram.
“Seven is a lot of goals for just one game. I was super excited and I was also really thankful for my teammates and everyone who assisted me to set me up for those goals.”
Wellington Coach Will Pabst noted the performance by Abram broke the school record for goals scored in a single game set held by two players, with one of the players setting the now-broken milestone in Pabst’s freshman year at Wellington as a player in 2005. He was proud of his senior’s leadership even when losing the match initially.
“Like he said, he was frustrated and I was frustrated as well,” Pabst said. “You expect guys like Henry as seniors to pick up that pace and bring the team along to play at that same level. It took that kind of an effort from him and his teammates like he said to get the job done and get the win. It’s what we expect from our upperclassmen and he rose to the occasion and helped get the team a win.”
Pabst and the rest of the coaches didn’t realize until after the game the jaw-dropping number of scores Abram put through the net.
“Because we were losing at halftime and then at that point both teams were scoring, it was 4-3 and (Trinity) was winning,” Pabst explained. “Then we got up by a goal or so. I was talking with my assistant to talk about what else we needed to do to have this game solidified and it honestly didn’t register with me that he had scored seven goals.
“I knew that he was playing well, but I didn’t know he had scored seven until after the game. I was looking at the stat book and I was like ‘Wow! He scored seven of our nine goals and had an assist’,” the coach chuckled.
After the eighth goal of the game and Abram’s seventh score, he moved to center back to provide a defensive boost. He’s come a long way over his four years, but as the senior said, “There’s always more work to be done.”
“It’s great I was able to score seven goals and it’s great that that happened,” said Abram. “But right now in my head I’m also focusing on what can I do for my teammates to make sure that they’re playing at a level that makes the entire team so much better? So I don’t have to score seven goals. It’ll be maybe I score two and someone else scores two… I just want to make sure it’s all balanced out.”
