Burned But Not Broken

It was supposed to be a night of triumph.

In the world of youth soccer, late June is typically a lull. Players scatter for family vacations, coaches regroup, tournaments wrap up, and the focus quietly shifts from the grind of the season to preparations for the next. For South Shore Select Soccer Club, it was an even rarer kind of night: historic, even. Two of its alumnae, Ally Sentnor and Lily Reale, once teammates in the program, were about to take the field for the U.S. Women’s National Team.

This wasn’t a symbolic roster nod or a last-minute substitution. They were starting. Two women who had grown up on the fields of South Shore Select were now suiting up on the biggest stage in the sport.

For Liz Lima, owner of both South Shore Select and its home base, the South Shore Sports Center in Hingham, this was more than just validation. It was the culmination of decades of work, sacrifice, and community building.

Lima had been receiving text after text. The game had just ended. Messages flooded in from families on the road at June tournaments in San Diego, Virginia, and North Carolina. Some came from old teammates, others from wide-eyed parents now watching their own daughters chase similar dreams.

“It was one of those nights,” Lima recalled. “You could feel it. You knew it mattered.”

But just as the celebration swelled, so did the sound of a phone ringing.

It was Steve McAuliffe, her executive director. A man who never called late unless something was truly urgent.

“I don’t want you to panic,” he said. “But I’m headed to the Sports Center. There’s been a fire.”

Her heart sank. She was eight months pregnant, home alone with her three kids asleep upstairs. At first, she stayed put. Maybe it was just a false alarm, the kind of thing any longtime facility owner gets used to. But something didn’t sit right. She called her mom to come over. Fifteen minutes later, she was behind the wheel.

When she pulled up to Recreation Park Drive, she knew it was bad. The flashing lights of dozens of fire trucks lit the night sky like a distress flare.

By the time she arrived, reporters and residents were already there. The building - more than five decades old, and home not just to soccer, but to baseball, field hockey, lacrosse, and generations of childhood memories - was engulfed. Lima stood there, shoulder to shoulder with staff, parents, and neighbors, watching as firefighters fought to save what they could.

She stayed until nearly dawn.

"I think I was in shock," she said later. "It didn’t hit me right away what we had lost. It wasn’t just the turf or the walls or the bar or Kids World. It was our home.”

Roots that Run Deep 

Before she ever stood under the glow of a national spotlight, before the fire or the 2,000 players, or the Tuesday staff lunches and the Select Strong t-shirts, Liz Lima was a kid from Rockland with a soccer ball.

South Shore Select didn’t start in a boardroom. It didn’t emerge from a business plan or venture capital. It began the way most things worth building do: small, personal, and rooted in family.

In 1996, Lima’s father—an immigrant from Portugal and longtime Dunkin’ Donuts franchisee—wanted a better place for his daughters to play soccer. So, he created one.

“He just wanted a team for me, my sister, and our friends,” Lima said. “Over the years, he took his retirement money and poured it into a youth soccer program.”

At the time, girls’ soccer still lived in the margins. Club teams were rare, especially for girls. Facilities were outdated, and support systems for youth players barely existed. What her father created was more than a field. It was a place to belong.

They called it South Shore Select. The team played out of the South Shore Sports Center, a quirky yet well-cared-for indoor facility in Hingham that had already lived many lives. It started as tennis courts, then became a roller hockey rink, and eventually one of the region’s first indoor turf arenas.

Back then, the space was far from glamorous. Games kicked off at 5 a.m. or ran as late as 11 p.m., the scoreboard sometimes flickered out, and the heating system didn’t always work in the winter. But to Lima, it felt like magic.

“It’s where we grew up. It’s where we learned to compete and where we made friends. We didn’t own the building back then, but it felt like ours.”

The Sports Center was owned by the Martone family, an equally soccer-obsessed group with deep community ties. Tony Martone, the longtime coach at Merrimack College, had run the facility for years. Over time, he and Lima’s family built a quiet understanding: if the time ever came to sell, the Martones would keep it in the hands of another soccer family.

That day eventually arrived. By then, Liz had graduated from Harvard, where she played Division I soccer. She had met her husband while playing professionally in Italy. She had returned home and launched a sports travel business. But the pull of the South Shore—and the program she grew up in—proved stronger than any passport stamp.

In the mid-2000s, she took over South Shore Select, which at the time had just ten teams. Slowly, then rapidly, it grew. Today, the program fields more than 160 teams across four regions. Select now operates in Metro South, the North Shore, and New Hampshire. Yet the heart of the operation is still in the South Shore, where more than 1,200 year-round players lace up cleats for Select each season.

As the soccer club expanded, so did the family’s investment in the place where it all started.

In 2020, Lima purchased the real estate for the South Shore Sports Center. After years of running the business, she and her father finally became owners of the aging but beloved facility. For Lima, the decision wasn’t about asset value. It was about legacy.

“We didn’t want it turned into condos or a strip mall,” she said. “This was our home. And we wanted it to stay that way—for everyone.”

The facility offered much more than soccer. It was also home to other sports organizations, school vacation camps, birthday parties, and Kids World—the center’s popular indoor playspace for children under six. On weekday mornings, strollers lined the front entry. Parents grabbed coffee while toddlers jumped into bouncy houses. On Saturday nights, teenagers snuck in one more rep in the batting cages while parents relaxed in the lounge.

Lima’s staff knew every kid’s name. They also knew the siblings, grandparents, and even which snacks each child preferred. There were no closed doors or velvet ropes. Just a steady rhythm of trust, built over years of consistency.

“It wasn’t perfect,” she said. “It was an old building, and we did our best to make it beautiful. But what mattered most was how people felt inside it.”

South Shore Select rose to national prominence, known not just for producing top-tier talent but for developing grounded, confident kids. Yes, the club celebrated national titles and professional contracts. But Lima’s focus never wavered from what she believed mattered most: values like respect, family, and community.

For her, the story was never about turf or trophies. It was about people and the power of giving them a place to belong.

Rallying The Team

The night of the fire, Liz Lima stood on the side of Recreation Park Drive, watching a place she had helped build from the ground up slip into smoke. By morning, the South Shore Sports Center, the physical heart of her operations, was a shell.

Even before the flames had been extinguished, her people began to arrive.

“They just showed up,” Lima recalled. “No one needed to be asked. The entire staff was at my house the next day. They didn’t know where else to go. We didn’t have a home base anymore. But we were still a team.”

South Shore Select and the South Shore Sports Center are technically two businesses. In practice, they are closely connected. Select is Lima’s year-round soccer school, home to more than 2,000 year-round student players and recognized as one of the most accomplished soccer programs in the country. It also has an additional 2,000 athletes participating in its Tots and Futures programs, as well as the year-round camps and clinics offerings. The Sports Center, on the other hand, served as the physical facility. It was a place for soccer, baseball, lacrosse, birthday parties, and weekday mornings filled with toddlers and coffee cups.

The fire left nothing behind. The turf fields, the batting cages, and the well-loved Kids World play area were all destroyed. So was the familiar staff gathering space, where every Tuesday the team would share lunch and laughter.

The building was gone, but the team’s spirit remained strong.

Staff members rallied quickly. They didn’t wait for direction. They came out of care, loyalty, and love. Meetings moved to Liz’s house. Schedules were rebuilt. Programs were adjusted. Coaches worked together to secure temporary field space and restructure training plans.

One of the biggest challenges was the loss of their workspace. For years, they had walked into the same building each day, shared ideas, and relied on physical proximity to stay connected. Suddenly, they were spread out in living rooms and coffee shops.

Then the South Shore Chamber of Commerce stepped forward.

Within days, the Chamber offered Lima and her staff access to their own office space. There was no lease, no paperwork, and no conditions.

“It saved us,” Lima said. “We didn’t even realize how much we relied on that physical space until it was gone.”

Tim Cahill, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber, captured the moment clearly.

“This was about neighbors helping neighbors,” Cahill said. “Liz and her team have always supported the South Shore, not just through their business, but through the sense of community they create. When we heard what happened, we didn’t hesitate. Our mission at the Chamber is to help businesses grow and thrive, especially when they face challenges. Offering them space was one small way we could help them stay on their feet and continue doing the incredible work they’re known for.”

Now, each day, between twenty and forty members of Lima’s staff work out of the Chamber’s headquarters.

Now, each day, between twenty and forty members of Lima’s staff work out of the Chamber’s headquarters. 

Finding new workstations was one challenge. Finding new gathering places for players and families was another. In the weeks following the fire, Lima and her team pieced together a new field network using temporary rentals and partnerships. 

“In terms of soccer, we’re okay,” Lima said. “We’ve always used multiple fields across the region. But the Sports Center wasn’t just where we played. It was where we came together.”

That is where the broader South Shore community stepped in.

For more than two weeks, families brought meals to the Chamber office. It was an organic, grassroots show of support. Parents, alumni, and friends of the program dropped off food, coffee, and snacks to sustain the displaced staff while they found their footing.

At the same time, Lima made it a personal priority to recognize the first responders who had worked through the night to contain the fire. She had witnessed their bravery firsthand and wanted to express the organization’s gratitude. She worked with a Select parent from Hingham, who had three children in the program, to coordinate thank-you visits to every local fire station involved. The effort included hand-delivered gift baskets, handwritten cards, and small tokens of appreciation — all organized by volunteers but inspired by Lima’s request to lead with gratitude.

Former employees also returned with quiet strength. Some wore “Select Strong” shirts, part of a community-led effort that Lima hadn’t even known was happening. She first saw the shirt when a former staff member arrived at her family’s home wearing one.

Support came from every direction. Some people sent letters. Others simply showed up with food or a kind word.

“The most comforting thing was hearing people’s stories,” Lima said. “Notes from alums, families who celebrated birthdays in the building, or people who hadn’t stepped inside in years but still felt connected to it. Everyone had a memory. Everyone had a reason to help.”

While her own family was reeling from the loss, Lima stayed focused on others. She thought about the businesses that had relied on the Sports Center. Organizations like South Shore Baseball Club also lost their home. She thought about the Kids World families and the parents now without a safe place to bring their toddlers. She thought about the birthday parties that had been canceled.

Instead of retreating, she expanded her efforts. She began forming partnerships with local organizations. If Kids World couldn’t reopen immediately, maybe another indoor facility could welcome those families. If Select’s annual Halloween party could not happen in its usual parking lot, perhaps it could move to a new venue and grow even larger.

“Hard things don’t break great businesses,” Lima said. “They make them better.”

The fire was devastating. But in its aftermath, something new began to emerge.

It wasn’t just about what was lost. It was about what could still be built.

Rebuilding Something that was More Than a Building

A month after the fire, Liz Lima still drives past the charred remains of the South Shore Sports Center almost every day. Sometimes she parks. Sometimes she just sits. The pavement is quiet now. There are no soccer balls thudding against the walls or kids laughing from the old Kids World play area. But for Lima, the silence is not a reminder of what was lost. It is a reminder of everything still worth protecting.

“We always knew this was more than just a building,” she said. “But now we really feel it. The emails. The stories. The way people still stop by just to say, ‘This was our place.’”

She does not see the rebuild as a typical construction project. To Lima, it is a chance to reflect the values that have always defined her work. This is not just about replacing what was lost. It is about restoring a shared space where families have grown, friendships have formed, and memories have taken root. In her words, this is a community project — not just in scope, but in spirit.

She is not aiming to create a polished or corporate facility. Her goal is to build something familiar and real. A place that feels like home, where people walk in and immediately know they belong.

She has already salvaged pieces from the fire. Photographs, trophies, and items that somehow survived the flames will have a permanent place in the new building. When families walk through the front doors, she wants them to see their own history. She wants them to know this is not just a new space. It is a continuation of everything that came before.

Plans for the rebuild are still unfolding. Insurance matters are not yet resolved. Architects are being interviewed. General contractors are being carefully considered. But the vision is clear. Lima wants to create a place that serves not only athletes, but entire families and the broader community.

“We are dreaming big,” she said. “What if there is space for physical therapy? What if there is a gym? What if we partner with organizations across the region and build something that serves people at every stage of life?”

She has already begun conversations with local businesses. She imagines bringing in sports medicine clinics, injury prevention specialists, food vendors, and even a local brewery to activate the bar and lounge space. Her vision includes spaces that can support families with young children, older adults looking for wellness programs, and everyone in between.

While the rebuild is top of mind, she has never stopped focusing on the present.

Select remains fully operational. Youth leagues are continuing on schedule. She’s looking for space and partners for play spaces for younger families. Instead of pausing, the business evolved.

Although Lima speaks with clarity and precision when discussing operations, her tone softens when the conversation turns to community.

She often talks about place. Not just in terms of physical location, but as a feeling. That is why her team is continuing long-standing traditions like the summer pool party and the annual staff clam bake. It is why she is already planning a version of the Halloween gathering that once brought more than a thousand people to the Sports Center parking lot.

“Traditions are what hold us together,” she said. “They are what make us who we are.”

Even though her building remains unusable, Lima rarely talks about her own needs. Instead, she asks how she can support others. She looks for ways to lift up smaller businesses, to help indoor play centers welcome displaced Kids World families, and to create opportunities for competitors to survive and grow.

Her approach is rooted in generosity. She believes in showing up. Not just when things are easy, but especially when they are hard.

“I really believe we will come out of this stronger,” she said. “But not because of me. Because of all of us.”

Lima has led teams to national championships. Her program has sent players to the top levels of the sport. But she does not measure success in trophies. She measures it in handwritten letters from alumni, in stories told by parents, and in those quiet moments when a child walks into a facility and knows they are safe and welcome.

When asked about the future, she does not focus on expanding. She talks about rebuilding a feeling.

“I want a space where people feel seen. Where they feel welcome. Where they can be part of something bigger than themselves,” she said. “That is what we lost. And that is what we are going to build again.”