Road win over Woburn highlights strong start
Published in the September 19, 2019 edition.
By DAN PAWLOWSKI
WAKEFIELD — A 1-6 record followed by five straight wins and a tie in the final match to accomplish a goal of making the state tournament.
The Wakefield High golf team certainly had a season to remember last year.
Now the question for a team returning six of their eight starters from last year’s varsity lineup, is can they get even better?
“They played a lot this summer, just very excited about the season,” said fourth year Wakefield head coach Chris Keane. “It’s a great group of kids. I’m happy that they’re enthusiastic enough to get out and play on their own, which is awesome.”
Practice is important in any sport, but what makes high school golf unique is the value of reps. You can improve your game if you want to.
“By the time the season starts you don’t really have time to work on things when you have three or four matches a week so spending the time to get ready for the season is pretty much up to them,” said Keane.
Thanks to their epic run to end the season, the Warriors had a ton of momentum carry over towards those offseason decisions.
“It’s how bad do you want it? It helped a lot with the momentum carrying over from last year when we went on a run – it kept them motivated and a lot of people played all summer,” said Keane.
Captains Oliver Miller, Jack Ryan and Cal Tryder, all juniors, fall into that category. They want to be back in the tournament.
Other starters back for the Warriors are Luke Hopkins, Howie Melanson and the lone senior Luke Roberts. Rounding out the top eight are Chris Power and Tino Rossetti.
The Warriors are 3-3 to start the season with league wins over Woburn and Watertown. Wakefield also won a non-league game against Everett to start the campaign and have dropped their last two this week to strong Middlesex teams, Belmont and Winchester.
As fun as it was last year, Wakefield is hoping to be on the right side of those inevitable close-scoring matches.
“Our first goal is always to qualify for the state tournament as a team,” said Keane. “You have to be .500 which seems easy but our league is so competitive that it makes it very difficult and that’s something we learned last year. We had so many matches decided by one or two points and half of our matches were decided by four points or less. So, depending on which way those go, you can be a league champion or you can be below .500.”
It hasn’t come up so far. The Warriors’ closest league match was a nine-point victory over Woburn, 40.5-31.5. They lost to Lexington 41-31 and beat Watertown 57-15.
This past week, they fell to Belmont, 47-25 and Winchester, 44-28.
As Wakefield tries to get back in the win column starting on Tuesday against Stoneham, it might be smart to try and replicate their performance against Woburn.
Ryan won his matchup 5.5-3.5 in the first spot, but it was Wakefield’s depth that won this match. Melanson won in the fifth spot 5-4, Roberts won in the six spot 5.5-3.5, Power won in the seventh spot 5.5-3.5 and Rossetti won at eight, 7-2.
Aside from being one of the biggest regular season wins for Wakefield in recent memory, it was a good one for Keane, playing against the very program that helped shape his love for the game.
“Woburn was a great team win,” said Keane. “Woburn Country Club is one of the trickiest courses you can play and they have one of the biggest home course advantages in the league so any time you can go in there and beat them, it’s huge.”
It was the first win for Keane against his alma mater.
“When I was in high school we went somewhere between 10 and 15 years without losing a home match. Regardless of skill level, it’s always tough.”
The numbers are as strong as ever for one of Wakefield High’s healthiest sports programs. Over 30 kids tried out for the team again this year.
Thanks to Keane’s efforts of starting a JV team with 18 total student athletes in his first year, the Warriors have one of the largest number of golfers in the league. According to the coach, about half the league has the minimum requirement for players. Melrose and Stoneham have eight. Watertown and Woburn have 10. So having over 30 kids interested is a big head start.
“Lexington has a developmental program but other than them, we’re the only school in the league with a JV team,” said Keane. “So, carrying 10 extra players every year, it gives kids who aren’t that experienced a chance to play. Then they can get better and make varsity. Tino (Rossetti) is a good example. He spent the last two years on JV, and won his match against Woburn 7-2 in the eight spot.”
With the summer work submitted (Keane, Tryder, Miller and Ryan even won the Warrior Club Golf Tournament in August), and a strong start, Wakefield is hoping to qualify for the postseason in a more traditional way in 2019.
“It’s going to come down to the small things. We can beat any team in the league and we can lose to any team in the league, which makes it fun and sometimes stressful,” said Keane with a laugh. “But it gives us hope because our ceiling is very high.”
