Coming into this fall, senior Dylan Winchell was in position to close out his last high school soccer season on a high note. Last year he was consistently a key player and helped the team to its third consecutive state title, earning himself a place in this year’s starting lineup as an outside midfielder. The day before the first game, though, he learned that his team needed something more from him than just his skill.
Dylan Winchell in Bromfield’s win over Nashoba. (Photo by Tim Clark))
The Bromfield squad was strong this year: 20 players from last year’s state champion team returned. However, it did have a weak spot. Only one of the returning athletes was a defensive starter. This left the back line in a weakened state that even a stellar offense couldn’t make up for.
Over the summer and during early season practices the team tried various players in the open positions, but the combination was never quite right. If they were going to succeed this season, they would need to find someone who could strengthen their defensive line.
Co-captain Alex Jorgenson thought he knew who might be a good fit.
Jorgenson and Winchell are close friends and have played soccer together since long before high school. Last year, as the team began to anticipate the next season’s lineup, Jorgenson casually mentioned the possibility of Winchell playing defense.
Winchell is good at crossing the ball, and he’s also quick and tactical, all valuable traits for a defender. With plenty of strong offensive players, his value as an attacker was a bit diluted. Now, the idea they joked about a few months earlier was beginning to look like the team’s best option.
Before the first game, Jorgenson went to head Coach Alex Horne with the idea of switching Winchell to defense and Horne agreed, though not without contemplation.
“We had to really calculate what we were going to lose offensively,” said Horne. “But we have a team motto … ‘defense wins championships,’ and we tend to put some of our best players in the back line.”
Horne said the final decision was Winchell’s to make, and his coaches and teammates recognized what he would be giving up if he agreed. Offense is where the glory is. Team motto aside, Horne said it’s a hard fact of the game that defensive players go largely unlauded.
“You want to have your senior year be like your breakout year,” said co-captain and goalie Ethan Fitzsimmons. “For somebody who’s playing offense … that’s scoring a bunch of goals and getting a bunch of assists.”
As a defensive player, Winchell wouldn’t have the opportunity to score goals. He wouldn’t have the affirmation of the crowds. He wouldn’t see his name in the paper as often. He would have to settle for the intrinsic satisfaction of knowing what his role in each game had been.
Despite this, Winchell said he didn’t hesitate to make the switch. He’d been thinking about it for a while himself, and when the time came to decide, it wasn’t difficult to say yes.
While attackers rotate throughout the game, the defensive line is rarely replaced. Winchell said he liked the idea of playing the whole game. He also wanted to be a more versatile player and to fill whatever role his team needed most. This year, that meant taking on a new position.
The first game wasn’t easy. His entire high school career, Winchell had played offense. Now, he felt a bit awkward in his new position. But as soon as Horne saw Winchell on the field as a defender, he knew that was where he would stay. He had the speed, power, and technical skill to own the position and, because of his experience as an offensive player, he was sometimes able to move up the field to execute attacks.
His aptitude in his new position showed through in one of the team’s most difficult matchups. Because of the reformation of leagues—now “pods” due to the coronavirus—Bromfield found itself matched up against Marlborough, a Division 1 powerhouse.
“They have one of the best forwards in Division 1,” said Horne, remembering the game. “If we were going to compete with Marlborough, we had to shut him out.”
A perfectly executed play
That was Winchell’s job, to match up with the opposing team’s best player and effectively cancel him out. He did this, but was still attentive enough to jump into an offensive role when he saw a teammate in a tricky spot.
The score was 0-0 and Jorgenson had a free kick. The rest of the team was by the far goal post in anticipation of receiving the ball, but his path was blocked by a defensive player from Marlborough. In a moment, Winchell was on the move. “[He] was sprinting as hard as he could to get down to the corner,” remembers Jorgenson.
The play wasn’t what Marlborough expected and there was nobody in position to mark Winchell. Jorgenson made the pass, and as soon as Winchell got the ball, just feet from the endline, multiple players took off after him. It was too late to thwart the maneuver, though. Winchell had a head start and just enough space to cross the ball to a teammate who took it and scored.
Horne remembers it as a “perfectly executed technical play,” illustrative of Winchell’s technical skill, mindfulness, and ability to read the game.
Winchell’s decision to step up—or, in this case, to step back—wasn’t surprising to those who know him well. He’s easygoing, with a calm demeanor even under pressure. He’s the teammate who elevates everyone’s mood, always joking around, keeping the mood light before big games, but never sacrificing focus once he gets on the field.
His lead-by-example attitude is what earned him the title of co-captain partway through this season.
Fitzsimmons said he noticed Winchell stepping into a leadership role during captain’s practices over the summer. He would help set up cones, run drills, and encourage the team to stay focused and on-task.
Once the season began, Horne saw the same behavior. With COVID-19 precautions, there was even more need than usual for leadership, and Winchell slipped quietly into that role.
Horne took note and, one day at practice, decided to recognize Winchell’s efforts. The team was running a drill but was struggling to focus. The boys were goofing off, their attention elsewhere.
“Dylan was the one to speak up and to regain focus of the team,” said Horne. He decided it was time to officially acknowledge Winchell’s leadership and, at the end of the practice, he named him co-captain.
Winchell said that making the switch to defense was part of the reason he was able to act as a leader this year. Eventually, he found that he felt more confident in that position than he had as an attacker. With this new self-assuredness came a greater ability to lead others.
While Winchell is matter-of-fact about what he did this season and in the years leading up to it, his coaches and teammates revere him.
“With his grades, with his attitude, with his athletic accomplishments … he’s going to go far and he’s going to accomplish a lot,” said Fitzsimmons. “[I] think that about him not just because he’s my friend and not just because I’ve known him my whole life but if I was an outsider looking in … I’d still think the same.”
