LYNN — A new era has officially dawned for the English girls soccer team, as the Bulldogs have hired former assistant Abby Driscoll as the team’s newest head coach. Driscoll takes over for longtime coach Ed McNeil, who retired last season after 15 years at the helm of the Bulldogs program.
“We’re very excited to have Abby take over the program,” said English Athletic Director Dick Newton. “We like to hire from within and we know we have a great successor to Ed in Abby. She’s been here, she’s familiar with the program and its players and she knows what it will take to get the job done.”
“I love this program and I love the school,” said Driscoll. “I’m really excited to be named head coach and I can’t wait to get started with the team. Our program always has a great group of girls who work hard on and off the field, and we want to keep that tradition going.”
Driscoll played high school soccer in Lynn, graduating from St. Mary’s in 2006. After not playing at the collegiate level, Driscoll found her way onto McNeil’s staff as an assistant and has been with the Bulldogs for the past four years. English’s other assistant coach, Madison Molea, will remain on staff and be Driscoll’s assistant.
Driscoll’s familiarity with the English program and players is one of the reasons she feels a little more comfortable as she gets set to begin her first head coaching job.
“I think that I have a really good feel for where the program is at right now and the kind of players we have,” said Driscoll. “I think being able to get to know these girls over the past few years will be a big help going forward because we’ll all have less of a learning curve when we start working.”
With English not playing in the fall sports season, Driscoll has had some time to sit back and watch how other programs dealt with the rule changes and challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bulldogs are currently hoping to play their soccer season during the “Fall Sports II” season that begins in late February.
“It’s good that I’m not a first-time coach in a brand new program for me because I think that would be a lot harder to deal with in these times,” said Driscoll. “We’ve kept in touch as a team, and we all understand that things are in a bit of a ‘wait and see’ mode right now. We’re all just keeping our hopes up and hoping for the best.”
In the “Fall Sports II” season, English will play its schedule against teams from the Greater Boston League because most Northeastern Conference teams played during the regular fall season. It’ll be a great preview for what’s to come in Fall 2021, when English and counterpart Lynn Classical move over to the GBL full-time.
“We’re all pretty excited about the move,” said Driscoll. “Over the past several years we’ve played a lot of those GBL teams as non-conference opponents and we always match up really well, so to be able to join the conference and play those teams a little more often will be nice.”
But for now, the plan for Driscoll and the Bulldogs is to stay in touch, stay safe and wait to see what will happen with their season.
