A round-up of recent Wellesley sports happenings:
Softball fields opening ceremony
Wellesley will celebrate the renovated Lee and Warren softball fields on Friday, May 7 at 4:30pm at Lee Field on Washington Street near the tennis courts.
The event is planned to last no more than 20 minutes.
More info: Jill Creevy at jillcreevy@comcast.net or 617-461-4618
Boston Marathon numbers up for grabs
Wellesley has received a handful of invitational entries for the in-person Boston Athletic Association’s Boston Marathon that will be awarded to local non-profit organizations and runners representing the War Memorial Scholarship Fund. The event has been pushed from April to October 11 this year due to the pandemic, and the field is limited to 20,000 participants.
Non-profits and runners may apply for these invitational entries between Tuesday, April 20 and Monday, May 10. Applications will be available on the Town of Wellesley website. The minimum fundraising amount for the 2021 Marathon is $5,000.
The Select Board will review all applications and announce the invitational entry recipients at its regular meeting on Monday, May 17.
Priority will be given to Wellesley non-profits and groups whose services benefit Wellesley residents. War Memorial Scholarship runners must be Wellesley residents.
Wellesley’s Peewee AA1 ice hockey team wins division title
Reported by Eddie Zeng, Photo by Dingli Zeng
The Wellesley Raiders Peewee AA1 team (12- and 13-year-olds) had a rocky start at the start of the season. They lost their first seven games by a margin of four or more. In the twelfth game of the season, they ended up winning for the first time against a team whose goalie didn’t show up. The team got beat up so hard that they moved down a division, and despite that, they still could never win more than two games in a row. They ended up last in their division, but their dedicated coaches, Sean Campbell, Scott Duddy, and the whole team never lost confidence and made a large run in the playoffs
In the first game of the playoffs on March 27th, the Raiders faced the top team in their division, Newton. The Raider’s offense pushed around Newton’s defense, but their goalie made many saves keeping their team in the game. Wellesley ended up finding the net in the third period and scored. In the next game, they defeated 5th seeded Triboro by five to two on April 3rd. This earned the team a spot in the Peewee Central American AA Division Final, in which Wellesley faced the 3rd seeded Junior Railers. The final game was set in Lawrence on April 10th.
The Raiders took an early 2-0 lead with goals by Jayden Hall and Alasdair McDonough. Late in the second period, all momentum shifted to the rival team when their wing swiped the puck away from Wellesley’s defense and scored from a breakaway. The Railers pounded on the Wellesley defense throughout the third period until it cracked and let in a second goal, tying the game with a minute and twenty-four seconds remaining. With momentum in their hands, it seemed imminent that they were going to win, but with less than a minute to go, Brady Anderson carried the puck up the ice into the rival team’s defensive zone. The puck soon was on the stick of Noah Pollock, with fourteen seconds remaining, and he delivered a shot that hit the goal post and went in. The Raiders’ bench was jubilant and their parents were cheering. The team would hold out for the remaining fourteen seconds and win the Valley Hockey League Peewee Central American AA Division Finals.
Coach Sean Campbell has repeated history. He led the Wellesley Raiders Squirt B2 team to win the division final in 2018. Alasdair McDonough, Conor Campbell, and Eddie Zeng are the proud players on both teams.
(Team roster: Brady Anderson, Conor Campbell, Adrian Daigle, Eoghan Daly, Kieran Duddy, Johannes Eikeboom, Conor Foley, Chase Gemski, Jayden Hall, Owen Keating, Alasdair McDonough, Sloane Partlan, Noah Pollock, Margaret Redgate, Jackson Reynolds, Kojo Sam, Matthew Silk and Eddie Zeng.)
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