What began in 2022 ended with perfection in 2025, as the class of 2029 swept all three regular season and playoff championships in the Foxboro Sports Center Junior High School league, an overall 50-15-4 record, and netminders’ Alexander Bird and Jacob Mula’s eye-popping +212 goal differential.
The road to a third-consecutive championship started with a season-opening loss to rival Walpole, one of only two on the season; the other defeat coming at the hands of their would-be championship game foe: Bridgewater-Rayhnam (BR). The date with destiny was sealed going into the playoffs as the overall number one seed at 17-2-1, an opening round bye and quarterfinal 13-3 drubbing of sixth-seeded Dedham.
Fourth-seeded Walpole was a predictably tough and talented semi-final foe. After starting in 2-0 hole, Medfield clawed twice clawed a one-goal advantage, including a lead with :45 to go, only to see Walpole knot it up at four going into a 3v3 sudden death overtime when Nolan O’Keefe found a gap between Walpole’s goalie and the near-side post after chasing an Owen Fessenden pass 150 feet down the ice 45 seconds into the final period.
The one-versus-two-seed championship took place March 9 in Foxboro Sports Center’s rink two, with favored Medfield wearing home white, and BR in red. Out of the gate, BR’s Michael Fahey was firing on net, connecting on his second shot less than three minutes into the game, putting Medfield in a familiar hole. But with less than a minute to go in the opening period, Cooper Baughman drew a tripping penalty that carried into the second. Just over a minute into the second, Fessenden capitalized on BR’s inability to get a fifth skater on the ice after the penalty expired, wheeling from the defensive zone and firing a post-in wrister off the right iron to even the score at one.
90 seconds later BR nearly had an equalizer with a bar-put wrister that Avery Stein turned into a fast-break and a far-side top-corner go-ahead goal that would prove to be all that Bird needed.
Medfield took a 2-1 lead into the final period. Coaches Storer and Fessenden saw an opportunity to put the game away early, and adjusted the lines for the first two shifts of the third. This paid dividends less than a minute into the period when Caroline Pollack’s break-out pass found Baughman for a quick outlet to O’Keefe who carried the puck deep into the zone, sliding it to wide-open Callan Carey who roofed a one-timer for a 3-1 advantage. The next shift had more great passing with Stein breaking out to Evan Kemmerer whose long-range pass found Will Teachout for a nifty deke, dangle and back-hander for an insurmountable 4-1 lead, shredding BR’s sails.
With less than three to play, before BR could pull their goalie to attempt a comeback, O’Keefe took it himself for a far-side wrister, capping a 5-1 victory and 20-2-1 season for three-time champion Medfield, matching current Medfield seniors Junior High league three-peat.
