A boy could help a girls’ high school field hockey team win a state championship this season.
Sophomore Ryan Crook, a boy who also plays varsity baseball, has shined for the Somerset Berkley girls’ field hockey team this fall.
And Somerset Berkley is now two wins away from winning the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association’s Division 2 field hockey state championship this year.
Somerset Berkley defeated Longmeadow at home, 2-0, on Sunday, November 10, in the Round of Eight of the Division 2 tournament.
With the win, Somerset Berkley advanced to the state semifinal game, where they are scheduled to face Hingham on Wednesday, November 13 at Dedham High School (neutral site game); the winner of that game will advance to the state championship game.
Crook has made many contributions during those wins. Here are a few examples, according to game recaps:
Four assists in a 7-0 win over Durfee on Saturday, September 7
Crook even single-handedly delivered his team two wins this season because the Dighton-Rehoboth girls’ field hockey team forfeited both of its games against Somerset Berkley this year. Dighton-Rehoboth cited a school district policy that allows the school’s teams and athletes to opt out of athletic competition against members of the opposite sex, as NewBostonPost previously reported. Dighton-Rehoboth enacted the policy after a girl suffered serious injuries last fall; the injury came after she was hit in the face by a ball shot by an opposing male player, as NewBostonPost previously reported.
Crook and his family have been heavily involved with Somerset Berkley field hockey. His mother, Jen Crook, is the team’s head coach. His older brother and sister also excelled for the team when they were in high school.
His older sister Cami, a 2021 Somerset Berkley graduate, plays women’s college field hockey at Providence College, an NCAA Division 1 school.
Plus, his older brother Lucas, who graduated in 2020, was a field hockey star. Lucas is the leading scorer in Somerset Berkley school history (142 goals and 122 assists).
Cami and Lucas helped Somerset Berkley win back-to-back Division 1 state championships in 2018 and 2019; Lucas scored the game-winning goal in overtime in his team’s 2-1 state championship victory over Nashoba in 2018. As a senior, he was named as the South Coast Conference’s most valuable player — and to The Boston Globe All-Scholastic team.
Massachusetts is the only state where boys can play field hockey with girls; they do so every year and make significant impacts on their respective teams.
The state lets boys play girls sports play because of the 1979 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision in Attorney General v. Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association. In it, the court determined that the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association’s policy of the time that stated “No boy may play on a girls’ team” was unlawful. The court’s view was it violated the Equal Rights Amendment of the Massachusetts Constitution.
Here is what the Equal Rights Amendment of the Massachusetts Constitution says:
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 new at the time of that decision. It passed via referendum in the November 1976 general election; 60.4 percent of voters supported it, while 39.6 percent opposed, according to the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office. Every county in the state voted in favor of the proposed amendment.
Statewide, in the fall 2022 season (the most recent data available), 216 Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association member schools had field hockey; 66 boys played in those programs, according to participation survey data from the MIAA.
Somerset Berkley head coach Jen Crook could not be reached for comment on Sunday or Monday.
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Photo by Raul Lieberwirth / Flickr 
