Things are looking bright for many Vineyard high school athletic teams early in this spring sports season. There were fewer games and matches this week due to April vacation.
Girls’ Lacrosse
The team led by coach Betsy Dripps continued its dominance last Thursday with a 13-3 drubbing of Fairhaven on the road. With the win, the Vineyarders remained undefeated and moved to 6-0 on the season.
As the weather warms, so do high school athletics, and several teams surged out of the gate early this spring, including girls’ lacrosse, girls’ softball, baseball and the ever-steady track team.
Girls’ Lacrosse
A little sun, a little rain, temperatures hovering in the upper 40s and the wind blowing hard — it was perfect weather for the opening weekend of Vineyard Youth Soccer’s little-heralded, largely-accomplished and newly expanded travel program on the fields at the West Tisbury School.
The Island’s travel soccer teams kicked off the first round of the season with home openers against several teams from the South Coast Soccer League on Saturday.
The weather may still be cold and grey, but spring was in full swing on the Vineyard’s athletic fields this week as the high school spring sports teams held practices and played in their first games of the season.
The boys’ tennis team split a pair of matches, while the softball team dropped their opener after a promising preseason. The boys’ lacrosse fell behind early in their opener but rallied late to make the game close, while the girls’ lacrosse team was dominant in its opener, winning easily by a 12-goal margin.
Matt Mincone, coach of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School boys’ hockey team, wasn’t disappointed by his team’s crushing 3-2 loss last Friday against Coyle Cassidy in the Division 2 South Sectional semifinals, a game decided by the largely unfamiliar format of a shoot-out.
Nor was the coach sad, or enraged by the shoot-out loss. Instead it left him, as it did many players and parents, feeling simply numb.
The juggernaut Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School boys’ hockey team easily defeated two powerful opponents this week to advance to the quarterfinals of the division 2 south state tournament, setting up an epic showdown tonight against old rival Coyle-Cassidy, the team that has knocked the Vineyarders out of the playoffs for two out of the last three years.
Tonight’s game against Coyle-Cassidy faces-off at 5:15 p.m. at the Gallo Arena in Bourne.