Back on Sept. 29, Michigan high school Benzie Central defeated Kingsley 17-0 in a match that was declared over at halftime. If that wasn’t sensational enough, how about this: 16 of the goals were scored by one player, making Kevin Hubbell the new national record holder in men's high school soccer.
The fact that the record was achieved by halftime has caused a national stir.
According to the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) website, Kingsley is now 0-16 on the year. They’ve scored seven goals and conceded 139. However, Benzie Central is currently second-to-last in the conference despite the goalscoring feats of Hubbell (who'd scored hat-tricks in eight consecutive games earlier in the season).
That still didn’t stop Kingsley from crying foul.
“To go after a personal record like that at the cost of another team’s dignity was a little uncalled for,” Kingsley coach Tim VanWingerden said. “Soccer is not the right place for that. Soccer is a gentleman’s sport.”
The Kingsley school board reportedly discussed the result on the Monday after the match, and school superintendent Keith Smith said, “If high school sports degenerates into, ‘Let’s try to hang the most points we can,’ and taking advantage of people when they’re down, we’re really missing the mark and need to reevaluate why we’re doing this.”
Speaking on “The Get Around” podcast, Hubbel said that he’d scored eight goals in the opening 10 minutes, leading Benzie Central coach Chris Batchelder to reveal that the national record was 14.
“My teammates were super, super supportive of it,” Hubbel said. “They wanted me to get it more than I did.”
Coach Batchelder echoed that sentiment by saying, “We are in a society where negative speaks before positive. I knew everyone wouldn’t agree when he broke the record. I knew there’d be some people upset with it.”
According to Batchelder, that negativity hasn’t been from his peers, coaches or the majority of social media, although there’s one exception: Facebook.
“There are some hate comments. I’m 17 years old. They’re on Facebook refreshing the post and seeing what they can put on there. They’re 60+, 80+ and I’m like…”
The previous Michigan high school record was 10 goals, scored by Cheboygan’s Karl Trost in 2003. In a very particular sign of the times, Trost told the AP that he set that record in a 20-0 blowout but — in a bygone era before social media — no one cared.
“People get on their computers or their phones and just go wild,” Trost said. “It’s really sad. I hate it for this kid. I really do. I wish it wasn’t like this.”
