BRADFORD, Vt. — Shannon Gould rarely stops yelling during games.
From the opening kick to the final whistle, the new Oxbow High girls soccer coach can be heard barking instructions at her players. Telling the strikers to push forward and get on the end of the balls the midfielders send their way. Imploring the midfielders to possess the ball rather than pass immediately. And so on.
But Gould let the Olympians know before their first game that this is just her style. In fact, she told the players the only time they should worry is if she’s not yelling at them about the things they’re doing wrong.
“She sees the potential in you,” sophomore defender Maggie Ellsworth said. “If you take it as, ‘It’s just making me better as a player,’ it makes you not tell her to shut up. She’s pushing us to get to that next level and the one after that.”
Perhaps Gould, who is coaching high school soccer for the first time in seven years, is also just releasing her pent-up energy. Born Shannon Bean, she played soccer at Lebanon High, helping the Raiders reach their first-ever state championship game as a sophomore in 1988. She then played for a year at the now-defunct Becker College in Worcester, Mass., before returning to the Upper Valley and starting her coaching career.
Gould’s first job came at Hanover, where she worked as an assistant coach, then was hired to start the girls soccer program at Sunapee. After a stint at Randolph, Gould — then known as Shannon Boisvert — was named head coach at her alma mater in 2005, where she compiled a 110-71-17 record over 11 years and led the Raiders to their only state title in program history. in 2010.
“The girls there were so much fun,” Gould said. “We won the state championship with a great group. I’ve stayed in contact with a lot of them.”
Gould stepped down after the 2015 season in order to watch her daughter, Kendyl Boisvert, play high school soccer — first at Hartford High for two years, then at Rivendell Academy when the family moved to Orford. But after 10 years working at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, she was ready to get back into working at schools and coaching.
Dan Thomas had been the girls soccer coach at Oxbow since 2019, but he was let go after the 2021 season and is now an assistant in the Lebanon boys program. So when Gould left Dartmouth-Hitchcock to become the administrative assistant at Oxbow, the coaching job was open, and she jumped at the opportunity.
Oxbow athletic director Heidi Wright, who took that role this summer after three years at White River Valley, had interviewed Gould for the Wildcats’ head coaching opening in 2019 but instead hired Kim Prestridge. When a coach with so much experience and a desire to return to the pitch fell into her lap as a school employee, though, Wright made sure not to pass on Gould a second time.
“I always want to hear what the kids have to say, and they were just moved by her passion and how excited she was to talk about building the program here,” Wright said. “The kids really responded to that in the interview. That’s what we’re in this to do; we’re in this to teach kids through athletics, and they were excited.”
Gould and Prestridge are now the only female girls soccer head coaches at Upper Valley high schools, and both were hired by Wright, who is one of only three female athletic directors in the area.
“It’s super-important for our female students to see that (women) can coach and can lead and can move everything forward,” Wright said. “For high school young ladies, especially, we want them to have somebody to look up to, somebody they can respect, somebody who can help push them to grow and develop not only in sports, but in every way, shape or form. It’s great for the program.”
Ellsworth said Gould’s coaching style is much different from that of Thomas, who was much quieter during games. Soccer balls were nowhere in sight during the first practice, which was all about conditioning — something Ellsworth said was not emphasized last season under Thomas.
The Olympians were a respectable 21-16-2 over Thomas’ three-year tenure but failed to win a postseason game. Oxbow’s last deep playoff run came in 2018 under Charlie Barton, when the O’s reached the VPA Division III semifinals, but they now have championship experience on the sidelines.
Gould’s era began with a 1-0 loss to Hazen on Saturday in a game where Oxbow dominated in the shot department, getting off 16 shots, 13 of which were on target, to Hazen’s six. The Olympians then played Lyndon to a scoreless draw on Tuesday.
The new coach is well aware that her vocal approach comes as a shock compared to what her returning players were used to, but she said the team has been receptive to it. Gould bases her coaching style on the way she was coached growing up, saying the more her coaches pushed her, the more she wanted to score.
“When they’re not (receptive), I usually will pull them aside and remind them that I’m not pointing at them; it’s just constructive criticism,” Gould said. “I’m trying to help them and guide them. That came from a long time of me playing and coaches pushing me.
“I want to continue to remind them that they have a little bit more in them.”
Benjamin Rosenberg can be reached at [email protected] or 603-727-3302.
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