By Meghan Foley
Hometown Weekly Staff
The girls’ tennis team took the 20th seed in D3 after a 5–8 regular season record. On May 28th, they defeated 13th-seeded Hanover 4–1 on the road. On June 3rd, they faced 4th-seeded Ursuline Academy in the final 16. The Warriors fell 4–1, but second doubles Cailyn O’Sullivan and Emily Dorman won one match with set scores of 6–3 and 6–4.
After the match, Head Coach Beth Eby reflected: “I am so proud of them. Did we have the best record that I’ve ever coached? No. But I have never had a group of … young ladies that have gotten together, worked together, bonded, done things together, over and over. And as one of my seniors said to me: ‘We’re a family.’ And that’s what it feels like. And I am proud of all of them,” she continued, “you know, Ursuline played an incredible match, they’re seeded four … [we came] out here and we did our best and the better team won and I think that’s great.”
Ursuline will have played 12th-seeded Weston on June 6th, with the winner advancing to face 1st-seeded Martha’s Vineyard Regional in the semifinals.
The next day, boys’ lacrosse (4th seed, 12–5 record) hosted Foxborough (13th, 12–6) for the second round of playoffs. The Warriors got off to a tough start. Braeden Sutton scored off of an assist by Eddie Breslin just over a minute into the game, but Foxborough responded with two goals before the end of the quarter. In the second quarter, they scored their third goal and Jackson Dodge responded. Foxborough scored again but Breslin scored a buzzer beater with less than a second remaining in the half, assisted by Kevin Nee.
Leaving the first half down 4–3, Head Coach John Isaf explained: “There was a little bit of… what’s the right word… a little bit of anger in the halftime huddle, a little bit of motivating comments from the captains and the coaches, but it was also just like settle down, you know, play our game, we’re deeper than they are, we just—everybody needs to hustle, we got other guys can go in and play, give your all. Only thing we can control at that point in the game is effort and attitude. You gotta hustle after GB’s, you gotta hustle after runouts on shots behind the cage, you gotta run back on defense like, it’s all mental, willpower, wanting it. And first half Foxborough wanted it more than we did. And second half, you know, I think our guys woke up and decided ‘hey, we don’t want our season to end today so you know gotta kick it into high gear.’”
The Warriors certainly did come alive in the second half, scoring four unanswered goals in the third quarter. Braeden Sutton assisted on goals by Max Dunne and Maverick MacPherson before scoring two of his own, the second of which was within the final second of the quarter.
Now up 7–4, the Warriors continued on their tear. Jackson Dodge scored just under a minute into the fourth and Connor Ryan added on just five game seconds later. Dunne and Breslin both earned goals assisted by Dodge before Foxborough scored their final goal of the game for a score of 11–5. With half of the quarter left, the Warriors got three more points. Breslin scored the first, then assisted Nee on the next, and scored again with an assist by Sutton.
After a close first half, Medfield took a 14–5 win with all but three goals scored in the second half.
“We ended the regular season with a couple tough losses to top ten teams in Lincoln-Sudbury and Longmeadow,” said Isaf. “But we play those games in order to get prepared for games like this, you know, first half tonight, Foxborough did a great job kinda throwing us off our game, we didn’t play like we needed to, and then in the second half we turned it on a little bit and we showed, I think, what we’re capable of.”
On Sunday, June 7th, the Warriors will have hosted 5th-seeded Falmouth (16–3) to fight for a spot in the semifinals. Scituate, who knocked the Warriors out in the semifinals last year and whose girls’ team knocked out the Warriors 12–11 on June 1st, is the 3rd seed with a 12–7 record. They have already secured their spot in the semifinals on the other side of the bracket, and they will face the winner of Weston (7th, 15–1) vs. Norwell (2nd, 15–3). If Medfield beats Falmouth on June 7th, they will play the winner of Wakefield Memorial (8th, 14–3) vs. Dracut (1st, 17–1) to go to the finals.
Boys’ lacrosse is the last remaining Medfield team in the playoffs. Warriors’ schedules can be accessed online at: arbiterlive.com, while power rankings and brackets can be found at miaa.net/game-day/tournament-central.
