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By Michael Flanagan
Hometown Weekly Sports Editor
After beginning the year with a tough 3-2 loss to TVL rival Westwood in the season-opener, the Dover-Sherborn varsity girls soccer team has bounced back with a pair of wins to improve their record to 2-3-1 a third of the way through the 2016 season.
The Raiders have shown great improvement throughout their last four games (2-2 record), and it starts with the leadership set by their captains of Leah Balmer, Ali Jordan and Emma White, as well as the rest of the strong core of upperclassmen present on the team.
David Wainwright earned his milestone 100th win as head coach of the Raiders on September 20 in DS’s 4-0 route of Bellingham.
Wainwright, who joined DSGS in 2008, has had a tremendously successful tenure with the program, which includes 2009 and 2012 TVL Coach of the Year honors, appearances in the 2012 and 2015 D3 South Sectional Finals, the 2010 D3 South Sectional Championship, and a D3 state title in 2011.
“I’ve had great talent and parent support here at DS since joining in 2008 and I’ve been very fortunate to have had dedicated players that invest in the learning process,” said Wainwright when reflecting back on his career at Dover-Sherborn.
The DS girls dropped a heartbreaker to defending D3 State Champion Millbury on September 17 and fell 2-1 to conference-leading Medway on September 22. The silver lining in all of this? While the Raiders may still have only gone .500 in their last four games, the team has had many positives to take away from their two hard fought losses, as they were able to hang with some of the more premiere soccer talent in the state for an entire 80 minutes in both matches.
Its safe to say at this point that Wainwright’s bunch is improving at an incredibly high rate with their scoring touch, ability to overcome hardship, and stay competitive against elite opposition. The DS girls soccer team is poised to get its win total up and crash the state tournament party come November.
