Boys have excelled in Massachusetts high school girls' field hockey in recent years.

Five boys have won a combined six league Most Valuable Player awards since 2019 — including some who helped their teams win state championships.

Here are the five boys who won those recent league MVP awards:

1. Ryan Crook — The junior at Somerset Berkley Regional High School has won back-to-back South Coast Conference MVP awards. He helped Somerset Berkley win the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association Division 2 state title in 2024 and 2025.

A midfielder, Crook had 10 goals, plus a team-high 33 assists. Crook had two assists in his team's 3-0 state title win over Hingham this year; last year, he scored both goals in his team's 2-1 title game victory over Norwood, as NewBostonPost previously reported.

2. Anthony Ford — The junior at Lowell High School was named Merrimack Valley Conference Division 2 Player of the Year this past fall after accounting for nearly half of his team’s offense. Ford shared the Division 2 Player of the Year award with Methuen sophomore Ava Nartiff.

A forward, Ford scored 27 goals and added 12 assists for Lowell, which finished 13-3-3 and qualified for the MIAA Division 1 playoffs before losing to Wellesley in the first round. His 27 goals represented 49.1 percent of the team’s 55 goals during the 2025 season.

Ford also played a major role the year prior. As a sophomore in 2024, he scored 20 of Lowell’s 45 goals, accounting for roughly 44.4 percent of the team’s offense. That team finished 9-9-1 and also earned an MIAA playoff berth.

3. Jonathan Scoletti — The 2024 Everett High School graduate was named Greater Boston League Most Valuable Player in girls’ field hockey in 2023. The Greater Boston League only has three field hockey programs: Everett, Malden, and Revere.

A forward who moved to midfield later in the season, Scoletti was reportedly one of his team's leading scorers.

“Jonathan is the one person on our team who can get the ball up field to the forwards, so they can create plays and score goals," then-Everett head coach Sabrina Wright said of Scoletti. "He has amazing stick skills, and his corner shots are top notch. Outside of his athletic ability, he really is a team player. He trusts everyone on the team to do their part."

4. Omar Marshall — The 2023 Everett High School graduate was named Greater Boston League Most Valuable Player in girls’ field hockey in 2022.

A forward, Marshall’s fall 2022 statistics are not readily available, but he was the team's top player. On October 14, 2022, for example, he put up three goals in a 7-0 win over Greater Lowell Tech. Additionally, he scored both of his team's goals in a 2-1 win over Malden on October 21, 2022.

5. Lucas Crook — A 2020 graduate of Somerset Berkley Regional High School, Crook was named South Coast Conference MVP as a senior in 2019. He was one of the best field hockey players in program history.

He helped Somerset Berkley win back-to-back Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association Division 1 state championships in 2018 and 2019.

Crook scored the game-winning goal in overtime of the 2018 state title game, a 2-1 win over Nashoba. In 2019, he scored 55 goals and added 33 assists. Over his high school career, Crook netted 142 goals and 122 assists; he finished his career as the leading scorer in school history.

Lucas Crook is Ryan Crook's older brother. Their mother, Jen Crook, is the Somerset Berkley girls' field hockey coach.

Why It Happens

Massachusetts is the only state in the union where boys who identify as boys can play on girls' sports teams. They do so every year, and some make big impacts on their respective teams.

The state lets boys play girls' sports due to the 1979 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision in Attorney General v. Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association. The court ruled that the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association's policy of the time, which said "No boy may play on a girls' team," was unlawful. The court's opinion was that it violated the Equal Rights Amendment of the Massachusetts Constitution.

Here is what the Equal Rights Amendment of the Massachusetts Constitution says, in full:

All people are born free and equal and have certain natural, essential and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness. Equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed or national origin.

 

The Equal Rights Amendment was just a few years old at the time of that decision. It passed at the ballot box in the November 1976 general election; 60.4 percent of voters supported it, and 39.6 percent opposed it, according to the Secretary of the Commonwealth's office. Every county in the Commonwealth supported the proposed amendment.