FILE PHOTO
Hayley Dowd of Peabody notched an assist in her professional debut with the Boston Breakers in a 5-1 win.
By ANNE MARIE TOBIN
Peabody’s Hayley Dowd didn’t have to go far to make her professional soccer debut Saturday. All she needed to do was take a quick stroll across the Boston College campus from her dorm room to the Newton Campus Lacrosse and Soccer Field, where Dowd has spent the last four fall seasons plying her trade as a scoring machine on the Boston College women’s soccer team.
On Sunday, however, Dowd was not in her usual maroon and gold team colors. Nor was she sitting in Eagles’ home team box; instead, she was in the visitors’ team box, playing for the Boston Breakers women’s professional soccer team in the Breakers’ preseason opener, a 5-1 win, against the Eagles. Dowd made the most of her playing time, notching an assist in the 88th minute on the Breakers’ fourth goal to put the game out of reach.
A two-time Atlantic Coast Conference Second Team honoree, two-time ACC All-Academic honoree and member of the ACC All-Rookie team in 2012, Dowd was drafted in the fourth round (38th pick) of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) draft by the Breakers earlier this year. She is currently in the tryout phase, attempting to secure a permanent spot on the Breakers’ professional roster, which is chock full of international veterans and some of the top collegiate players in the country.
She finished her Boston College career last fall as the second-leading scorer in school history and also served as a team captain. She scored 39 goals and finished sixth in points with 90. In her final season, she had seven goals, four of which were game-winners, giving her a total of 14 career game-winners.
Dowd re-wrote the record books at Peabody High, finishing her career with a school record 204 points and 148 goals under coach Dennis Desroches. She started with a bang, scoring 45 goals and notching 61 points as a freshman.
She was a two-time Northeastern Conference Most Valuable Player, a four-time Boston Herald All-Scholastic, three-time Boston Globe All-Scholastic and two-time All-New England honoree. The 2011-2012 Massachusetts Gatorade Player of the Year, she helped lead the Tanners to a state Division 1 championship in the fall of 2011. That year, she scored 60 points (41 goals, 19 assists) and led the state in scoring for a third straight year. She was the Eastern Massachusetts Player of the Year, the Globe Player of the Year and also earned National Soccer Coaches Association All-American and Moynihan Lumber October Student-Athlete of the Month honors.
Dowd is the second Peabody native in the last two years to play at the professional level, joining former Wheaton College star Luke Finkelstein. Finkelstein, a four-time New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) all-conference honoree and Division 3 All-American, played professionally for Hakoah Amidar Ramat Gan FC of Israel in 2015-2016.