By Meghan Foley
Hometown Weekly Staff
Last week, the field hockey team took an exciting win over Walpole. Although the scrimmage won’t count, it’s a huge accomplishment for the team. Last year, the Raiders had a record of 15–2–1, earning them the 3rd seed in Division 3. They made it to the semifinals where they were knocked out by 2nd-seeded Sandwich. Walpole was the 1st seed of D1 with a record of 16–1–1 and went on to win the title.
“I’ve been really looking forward to scrimmaging them,” said Head Coach Molly McGill after the 4–2 win. “They’re the defending state champs, so [I] knew it was going to be great competition, [I’m] thrilled with how our girls came out. We’re actually missing our whole senior class today too, which is even better.”
“We are a younger group,” McGill explained. “I’d say very sophomore-heavy, and—sophomores and juniors, so I guess like a mix, but yeah definitely our sophomore class is really showing up, and they played great today, I mean, they kinda lead the way for us today.”
The Raiders will have faced Dedham (last year 4–11–3) this past Tuesday for their first official game of the season.
“Yes, we open on Tuesday against Dedham, so one of our TVL rivals,” said McGill. “Dedham’s always good, so I’m a little bit worried, but honestly, coming off of this game I’m feeling a little bit hopeful. Feeling really excited and ready to go!”
Looking at the season ahead, McGill said: “Last year we did very well in the Tri-Valley League—we ended up going 12–0 actually, which I feel like is super rare, obviously I’m not saying that’s gonna be the goal this year—but just to do well, competing against—I know Medfield’s got a great squad this year, Hopkinton, Westwood always good—so yeah, just hoping to do well, we have a really tough set of non-league games that we’ve put together, so I’m hoping we can kinda compete with some of those teams from all over, so we’ll be travelling far this year, which is good.”
Their first home game will be this afternoon against Monomoy Regional (last year 12–5–1) at 4:00. Next week they will be hosting Bellingham (last year 2–17) on Tuesday the 15th at 4:00.
Raiders’ schedules can be found online at: arbiterlive.com.
