By Meghan Foley
Hometown Weekly Staff
The boys’ lacrosse team had a great run last week, winning all four of their games and bumping their record up to 8–3. Their final game of the week was at home against the Wayland Warriors on May 1st, where they held the Warriors to a difficult 0–10 season.
However, after the game, Raiders’ head coach Dan Morris explained that the Warriors are a tougher team than their record reflects.
Wayland was the first to score just over a minute and a half into the game, but Dover-Sherborn didn’t take long to respond. One minute after the Warriors took the lead, senior attacker Bobby Olsen took a shot on the run as he crossed the net and put away the Raiders’ first goal for a 1–1 score early in the game.
Wayland had a strong goalie who was able to stop some solid shots by Franco Montemayor and captains Oliver Atwood and Henry Fowler before Fowler got his first goal. After passing the ball around the top of the Warriors’ end, the Raiders sent the ball to Olsen. Olsen made like he was going to shoot the ball but instead passed it over to Fowler, who made the shot from ten yards out on the left side and put Dover-Sherborn in the lead 2–1. A few minutes later, Wayland tied the game with a bounce shot.
Defensive midfielder Hamilton Tsen picked up a loose ball behind the Dover-Sherborn net and ran it up the field before passing it to Olsen, who gave it to freshman Allston Abrams. Abrams quickly sent it to Montemayor, who had put himself in a good spot in front of the net, but a Warrior knocked the ball loose. Oliver Atwood kept the play alive, grabbing the ball and passing it to Fowler, who got the shot off and scored with a little under two minutes remaining in the first quarter. Fowler would try to get one more goal before the quarter ran out but was not able to.
Following the 3–2 first quarter, the second surprisingly yielded no goals for either team. In the final seconds of the first half, junior Teddy Oleyer had a critical moment on defense, checking a Warrior, picking up the ball, and launching it out of the Dover-Sherborn end, preventing a buzzer-beater shot from Wayland.
In net, junior Archie Abstoss was a key to the Raiders’ win, giving up no goals after the first quarter.
In the final minutes of the third, Fowler sent a pass to freshman Daniel Cavaliero behind the net, who came around for a shot but was unsuccessful. Fowler put the ball back in on the next play, but a Wayland defender took it from him. Not giving up, Fowler then knocked the ball from the Warrior’s stick and brought the ball back toward the Wayland net before passing it to Olsen. Open with a straight shot on net from a little over ten yards out, Olsen earned the Raiders their fourth goal.
At the beginning of the fourth quarter, Olsen chased down a ball headed out of bounds and kept it in. His hustle paid off because he was able to pass it to senior Charley Hartnett in front of the net. Harnett scored, earning a goal in the first 39 seconds of the quarter.
Three minutes later, Daniel Cavaliero facilitated Fowler’s third goal. Cavaliero passed Fowler the ball and set a successful pick for him. Fowler, now open to take the shot, scored Dover-Sherborn’s sixth goal of the game.
Following a save, Archie Abstoss sent a long pass up the field to Hamilton Tsen, who ran in and fired off a quick shot. Now up 7–2 in the final five minutes of the game, the Raiders kept their foot on the gas. Freshman Walter Siegal won the faceoff after Tsen’s goal and passed it to Fowler. Fowler passed it to Olsen, who held the ball for a moment as a few players subbed in, including Daniel Cavaliero. Reentering the game, Cavaliero called for the ball at the top of the Wayland end. Olsen passed it to him, and he ran up the left side to put away his first goal of the game.
The Raiders scored the final goal only seven game seconds later. Freshman Ben Savarese won the faceoff and passed it up to Fowler for his fourth goal and a score of 9–2.
This week they will have played Norwood (6–2) on Monday before facing the Wolverines (10–2) at Westwood High School on the 7th at 6:30. Then they will return home to host the Natick Redhawks (9–2) on Saturday the 9th at 11:00am. Last season they beat Norwood 11–5 but fell to Westwood 18–7 and Natick 7–6.
Speaking about preparing for their upcoming games after a busy week, Coach Morris said, "I think getting some rest over the weekend is big. Playing four games in five days is no joke. I think Wayland has a good goalie, and he made a lot of good saves early on,” he continued, “so I think being better with our shot selection so that we don’t shoot a goalie hot and cleaning some things up on defense so that other teams don’t make us pay, but, you know, Wayland’s a good team; it was a good way to end it with a win over them, and yeah, we’ll see what we can put together for next week. We have three games next week, playing Norwood, Westwood, and Natick on the Saturday, so another tough week, so we’ll try and clean some stuff up before then.”
The Raiders’ schedule can be found online at arbiterlive.com.
