Warriors dominate Raiders in opener

By James Kinneen
Hometown Weekly Reporter

On Friday night, Dover-Sherborn just wasn’t ready for Medfield’s defense.

In what would end up ultimately being a 61-23 loss to the Medfield Warriors, the ladies of Dover-Sherborn seemed shell-shocked at the multi-faceted, hyper-aggressive defense they were facing. Early on in the game, Dover-Sherborn could barely get the ball over half-court with Medfield defending so strongly, and by the end of the first quarter, they trailed 11-3.

Then, things got worse.

Medfield went on a 16-0 run in the second quarter, based on turnovers, run-outs and the occasional three-point shot. By the time Dover-Sherborn called timeout with 4:44 left, they trailed 27-3. At that point in the game, Medfield dropped out of their press and showed another of their unique defensive strategies.

“We’ll run 100 full-court man, we’ll run half-court man, and then we run our 1-2-2 half court trap,” said coach Mark Nickerson. “We’ll try to switch it up depending on what the possession ends up being, and then just tell the girls to play aggressive.”

No matter what defense they were playing, the aggression maintained.

To their immense credit, the Dover-Sherborn girls fought hard, but couldn’t come back. With such a large lead in hand, Medfield was able to put in some of their backups and younger players for experience.

“It’s nice to see some of these other players play and to see what they’re capable of doing. A couple of girls came off the bench and did a nice job. Tess Patry didn’t start for us, but she was the tone-setter for our defense. I think she ended up with something like nine steals. It was really hard for them to get anything started, with her on the ball.”

For Dover-Sherborn, as tough as this loss was, there is plenty of time for them to work on some things in practice and right the ship. They certainly won’t be surprised by Medfield’s aggression next time.

For Medfield, this was a nice win, but one coach Nickerson was keeping in check.

“It’s nice to get off to a good start. We talked before the game about trying to make a statement to the rest of the league. Hopefully, we did that a little bit. We lost some good players last year to graduation, we’ve got some injuries, and I think a lot of people thought we were going to be down. It’s one game, who knows where it goes from here, but it was a good start.”