By Paul Vozzella
Hometown Weekly Sports Reporter
The Raiders took to the road on Saturday to take on their best opponent to date: undefeated Norwell. They were unable to pull out a victory, dropping the game 16-3.
The game got out of hand quickly for Dover-Sherborn as they fell into a 5-0 hole within the first four minutes of the game and spent nearly the whole first quarter on defense.
“We were just missing our intensity,” said head coach AK Joyce on the lack of offense. “We missed that spark. Unfortunately, we just weren't connecting passes. We weren't able to get our transition working the way that we normally do. And it was just frustrating that we couldn't produce in a way that we've shown we're capable of.”
Finally getting its first legitimate scoring opportunity with around one minute left in the first quarter, Dover-Sherborn got a shot on goal, but the ball flew off of the post to the Clippers. By the end of the frame, the Raiders were down 9-0.
Although the deficit was massive, the Raiders played a competitive game the rest of the way. Captain Molly Malloy found the back of the net 1:05 into the second quarter, finally putting a point on the scoreboard for the Raiders.
After several minutes of scoreless action, Norwell scored again. Junior Isabella Morrill made a great save but an unfortunate bounce back to the Clippers led to a score, as Morrill was not able to recover in time to block the second shot.
Norwell scored again at 9:20 to bring its lead to 11-1. The Raiders had a chance to exit the first half with a little bit of momentum on a coast-to-coast scoring opportunity, but could not find the back of the net on their shot attempt.
Dover-Sherborn went scoreless in the third quarter but only allowed two goals to the Clippers.
“Obviously, we had a rough start and we kind of dug ourselves in a hole, but I'm proud of the way that they bounced back and we're able to recover [on defense],” said Joyce. “We were able to find those slides, find those cutters, find the players that we needed to mark up on. So I'm proud of the way that defense and [midfielders] really played through the whole game.”
Freshman Barrett Saxe scored the second goal of the game for the Raiders at the beginning of the fourth quarter and would later assist the Raiders’ final goal of the game on another score from Malloy.
Dover-Sherborn’s record fell to 5-6 with the loss, but five out of six defeats have come against teams ranked within the top 10 of their respective division based on the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) power rankings.
“It's the best experience, honestly,” said head coach AK Joyce on the hard matchups. “I know it stinks, in the season, having those losses, but it's the only way to prepare for the postseason… We just hope that we can learn from those mistakes and grow from them.”
