Medfield Girls' Lacrosse Wins on Senior Night to Finish Regular Season 16-2

Tuesday was Senior Night for the Medfield High School girls’ lacrosse team – so it was fitting that a pair of seniors led the Warriors to a 15-12 victory over rival Dover-Sherborn.

MHS seniors Kate Wasley (five goals) and Katie Ott (four goals) led the team in scoring as the Warriors held off a pesky D-S squad to close out their regular season with 16 wins (10 in the Tri-Valley League).

“We’ve had a great season,” said Medfield head coach Jason Heim. “We’re 16-2 and our two losses are to Westwood and they’re ranked No. 1 in the state.”

Heim credited his players for grinding through a difficult schedule, especially down the stretch to finish the season on an eight game winning streak.

“These girls are worn out,” Heim said. “We’ve played four games back-to-back-to-back-to-back against some good teams and they’ve stuck it out and really played hard and really made sure we came away with the win.”

As the Warriors’ focus shifts to the MIAA Division 2 South Sectional State Tournament, Heim says there is still plenty of work to be done.

“We have work to do,” Heim said. “Defensively, we need to sure some things up for the tournament. Offensively, we have some work to do to get a couple more looks when people start figuring out what we can do well and start trying to stop us, we got to figure out other ways to do it.”

On Tuesday, Medfield honored its four seniors: Wasley, Ott, Isabelle Hackett and Meara Stack before the regular season finale with Dover-Sherborn.

“The seniors have been great,” said sophomore goalie Sarah Honan. “They are all captains this year and they’re great leaders and they help keep our spirits up and help inspire us to keep moving forward and to do well in every game and try our hardest.”

Honan did her part in net to make sure the seniors final regular season game ended in victory as she made several key stops late in the second half to preserve the Warriors’ slim lead.

“Sarah Honan had a great game in net too, she had five saves or so at the end that were huge,” said Heim. “She’s an outstanding player. She was ranked number one goalie in the TVL.”

Honan credited the play of her teammates on defense that helped her turn in a great game in net.

“We’ve played together as a team and that’s really helped me and my performance because the chemistry of our team and our defense helps me and lifts my spirits up if I let a goal in,” said Honan. “The defense has really helped me play well this year.”

Dover-Sherborn jumped out to a 1-0 lead less than three minutes into the game but Wasley responded with two of her five in a span of 1:39 to give Medfield the early 2-1 advantage. It was a lead the Warriors would not surrender the rest of the game.

Wasley would score twice more in the half but the Warriors held just a one-goal lead  (8-7) at the break after Dover-Sherborn scored just before time expired.

Medfield opened the second half with four straight goals to build a 12-7 lead but D-S stayed within striking distance because it got offensive production from more than a couple players.

“We [played really well Tuesday] because our last game against Medfield was 16-7 and in [that] game we only had four people scoring but one person carrying the whole offense but this time we had five offensive scorers with multiple goals so it made a huge difference,” said D-S head coach Erin Newton. “When you can have multiple offensive scorers that helps and it showed with the last game being 16-7 and [Tuesday] being 15-12.”

Leading 12-8, Medfield was outscored by the Raiders, 5-3 down the stretch in the second half but managed to hold on for the three-goal victory thanks to Honan’s effort between the pipes and ball control when it mattered.

“I think we had a five-goal lead three or four times in this game but we never seemed to be able to put the nail in the coffin and I don’t know why we can’t seem to do that,” said Heim. “We go on streaks of winning draws and then we lose a bunch and drop them back in and catch back up. It never felt like this game was away, even up to the end.”

With the regular season now behind the Warriors, Heim said his team is looking forward to the start of the state tournament.

“One game at a time,” he said. “Seedings come out Thursday so we will see what happens.”

Medfield will likely earn a number one or two seed in the Division 2 South field with a 16-2 overall record but Heim is still using the time before the state tournament to make sure his team is prepared for the next level of competition.

“We are going to go to Needham on Thursday and they’re ranked really high with only two losses – one to Westwood and one to Wellesley,” said Heim. “They’re Division 1 so we won’t see them but it will give us an opportunity to get scenarios going where we are down a goal or up a goal and try to kill situations off and they haven’t seen us either so it will be nice to see what we do against teams that haven’t seen us that really know where our strengths are and I think that’s more of what you’ll see in the tournament with teams coming from all over the place.”

Aside from Wasley’s five goals and Ott’s four, Medfield goals were scored by Abby McQuillan, Emily Zlevor (two), Natalie Gill (two) and Katelyn Noschese.

Dover-Sherborn’s Kristen Bertschman scored four goals. The Raiders finish the regular season 9-8-1 and will learn its seeding in the state tournament on Thursday. Honan said she is looking forward to the postseason.

“I’m looking forward to playing some tough teams [in the tournament] and trying to beat them and show what we are made of,” she said.