This fall has been a banner season for Bromfield sports teams—quite literally. A new banner will soon hang in the Bromfield gym honoring the teams that won league championships this fall. The five winning teams are girls’ soccer, boys’ soccer, boys’ cross country, field hockey, and golf, two of which made it to the division quarterfinals.
Field hockey
The field hockey team, under captains Katherine Hodskins and Colby Newsham, finished the season as Mid-Wachusett C champs with a league record of seven wins, one loss, and two ties. Overall, the team won 15 of its 19 games during the regular season and also its first district match.
Coach Sue Silver described this year’s girls as “a come-from-behind team” that earned their way to the top in “a very tough league.” Silver wrote in an email to the Press that this team “always ‘expected to win’ even when I had my doubts. That is why I never worried when we were behind. They had a great mindset.”
The team included five league all-stars: Lily Moore-Eissenberg, Moira Morgan, and Aliza Maki, along with Hodskins and Newsham. Silver noted that Maki scored 23 goals during the season.
Silver summed up the season this way: “In all my years of coaching at Bromfield, this team ranks in the top three based on attitude, effort, and flat out fun to be with.”
The team made it to the quarterfinals in its division but was knocked out of contention in a 2-1 loss to Auburn on Oct. 31. (See story, page 29.)
Boys’ cross country
The Bromfield boys’ cross country team beat out five competitors to rise to the top of the Mid-Wachusett C League, improving sharply after a third-place finish last year.
Coach Barry Coonan wrote, “Our focus for the team this year is to keep everyone healthy for the run at the end of the season, and not so much at the beginning. Our first goal was to capture the league meet.” The team achieved that goal, winning by four points over Tyngsborough.
Coonan cited the contributions of junior Nick Steele, who he said “dominated every race,” and senior Price Day, who is coming back after an injury. Both runners, Coonan said, should be in the top five for district competitions.
But the coach emphasized that the team’s success was a group effort. “We developed a group and pack of people who are young but on the move,” he wrote. Sophomores Will Day, Jamie Barrett, and Paul Chapman are in the top seven, Coonan said; and freshmen Ryell Dejuiter, Tucker Banios, and Luke Jones are in the top five. Although team captain Matt Polimou has been injured for most of the season, Coonan said he has been extremely valuable as part of the coaching staff.
To qualify for state competitions, the cross country team has to finish among the top three in district meets. Last year, Bromfield finished in tenth place in district competition, but Coonan expects to place higher this year. “I feel they are a lot stronger,” he said.
Girls’ soccer
The girls’ varsity soccer team also earned the top spot in the Mid-Wachusett C League, edging out Oakmont for the honor. Their record in the regular season was nine wins, five ties, and five losses. The team went on to district competitions but lost in the first round in a hard-fought, double-overtime game. (See story on page 28.)
Team member Carlisle Ferguson, a junior, said, “We played a lot of tough teams outside of our league, and we held our own against most of them.”
Like several other Bromfield teams, girls’ soccer is in fact competing above its division. Most of the schools in the Mid-Wachusett C league are larger than Bromfield, according to boys’ soccer Coach Tom Hill. Based on Bromfield’s size, Hill told the Press, the teams should technically be competing in Mid-Wachusett D, but they have elected to play in C “for the competition.”
Seniors who finished their successful fall season on this team were captains Sofia Catalina, Olivia Phillips, and Elly vandeVaart, along with Amy Jorgenson, Evelyn MacMahon, and Hannah Wharton.
Golf
The Bromfield golf team was undefeated in 11 matches on its home course, Red Tail Golf Club, Coach Bryan King told the Press. King noted that playing on home ground means more in golf than in any other sport.
Captained by juniors Jake Frackiewicz and John Seymour, the team has won its first league title and qualified for sectionals. Seymour was also co-MVP of the league, and junior Ray Ruenheck was a league all-star.
In golf, Bromfield plays in the Mid-Wachusett D division against Ayer-Shirley, Littleton, Maynard, West Boylston, and Tahanto. But the team also took on other tough competitors outside that division, including Oakmont and Sutton, both of which were undefeated until they met Bromfield on its home course.
King said that Seymour, Frackiewicz, Ruenheck, Ryan Bollman, Scott Jarosz, and Jack Shelton all scored in post-season matches.
None of the team’s 14 players is a senior, so Bromfield can expect to be a strong competitor in golf next year as well.
Boys’ soccer
With a record of eight wins and two losses in the league, the boys’ varsity soccer team also finished on top of the Mid-Wachusett C division, as well as winning its first game at the Central Massachusetts district level. (See story, page 28.) The team’s record for the regular season as a whole was 10 wins, five losses, and a tie.
The Trojans had a tough schedule, Coach Hill said, and were not a particularly strong team offensively. “We scored the fewest goals in many years,” he said, but still put together a winning season.
Hill said the boys’ soccer team was a good mix of ninth- through 12th-graders. Seniors Matt Olejarz and Adam Lorenz-Kruk captained the team. Olejarz was also league MVP, while Lorenz-Kruk, Omar Al-Homsi, Nate Greene, and Hunter Ashley were league all-stars.
Hill praised the whole team’s accomplishments and said, “Their niceness and sportsmanship has been outstanding.”
More championships to come
As a veteran coach, Hill looked over the fall season as a whole and concluded that Bromfield has a lot to be proud of. “For the school to get five championships in the fall is really a good start,” he said. And he expects the school’s teams to do well in the rest of the year as well. “Bromfield is not done winning championships,” he predicted.
As of Wednesday, Nov. 5, the team had just beaten Littleton 1-0 and was headed to the district semi-finals.
