Sports

JIM’S VIEW: Watertown Field Hockey Wins a Nail-Biter Over Reading

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Friday afternoon’s contest was the last of five straight home games for the Raiders before they go on the road next week. On an absolutely beautiful Fall afternoon, Watertown hosted Reading, who was in third place in the Liberty Division. The Raiders started the day in first place in the Freedom division at 4-0, and remain in first at 5-0, but it wasn’t easy. Reading looked like the road team in the first period, as in they arrived late because of Friday traffic, were allotted 15 minutes to stretch and warmup, and then the game began. Watertown won the first period in every way — except on the scoreboard, where it remained 0-0 after one period. Reading barely crossed midfield, the Raiders had all the scoring chances and were awarded six penalty corners because of the constant pressure they put on Reading. A bit of a bug-a-boo this season, though, Watertown could not convert on any of the six PC’s. 

Reading got their bearings in the second and finally put some pressure on Watertown, albeit in drips and drops. In the meantime, Watertown continued to force the play. Gianna Venezia and Kaylee Master were especially active, and seemingly always around the ball. Finally, with 7:40 left till the half, Watertown’s pressure led to a scrum in front of the net, and finally Avangaline Anderson was able to put the ball in the cage and give the Raiders a 1-0 lead.  

Freshman goalie Natalia Keuchkarian was certainly not busy, but was called upon to make one tough play when a ball came at her awkwardly and with a a big bounce. She played it aggressively and decisively punched the ball out of harms way with her blocker. Late in the period a wild scrum occurred in front of the Watertown goal. Keuchkarian came out to cut off an angle on a potential scoring chance, but the ball squirted around, Watertown defense scrambled to cover the goal while the goalie worked to get back in position, and somehow, Watertown avoided giving up a goal, as well any violations from the ref. Now, you would have bet dollars to doughnuts that Watertown would figure out how to add to the lead in the second half, but it was Reading who applied the early pressure. After that, both teams kind of lulled for awhile, and then Watertown got their game back and applied more pressure. That led to four more penalty corners, but none led to a score.

Sports

JIM’S VIEW: Raiders Field Hockey Dominates Melrose, Anderson Leads the Way

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Watertown’s schedule has allowed them to play nothing but home games of late, and that continued versus Melrose. This game was a one-sided affair that Watertown led from start to finish. Avangeline Anderson netted 5 goals today to lead the way for Watertown. Watertown peppered the Melrose goalie early and often, and she had trouble controlling rebounds, and her defense wasn’t very helpful when it came to clearing the ball. Anderson was always in position and scored a number of her goals off rebounds, her stick ready to knock the ball in the cage. Anderson scored two in the first period, one in the second, one in the third and one in the fourth. Kaylee Master had three goals of her own, Aisling Brennock two and Sophia Setouhi and Katelyn O’Connor each contributed one. Unofficial totals had Watertown with at least 25 shots on net to only three for Melrose. The interesting storyline for me is the simple fact that Watertown scored 12 goals — or more specifically they were allowed to score 12 goals. Now look, what I know about field hockey is next to nothing. It has been fun and an honor to cover Watertown Field Hockey the past few years. They work hard, they play hard, and the deserve all the accolades they receive.     

So, by watching their games, you come to learn some things. One thing I’ve learned is that when Watertown gets up by seven goals they shut it down, so to speak. They stop taking shots on goal.  They stop even taking the ball towards the goal. Today, they went up 6-0.

Sports

JIM’S VIEW: Watertown Boys Regains First Place Division With Victory in Soccer Night Matchup

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Soccer nights have become a “thing” and Watertown’s was last night. The nightcap featured first place versus second place in the Freedom Division of the Middlesex League, specifically Melrose at 3-0-1 and 7 points, and the Raiders in second place at 2-0-2 and 6 points. Overall, Melrose was 4-2-2 and Watertown undefeated through eight games at 3-0-5. There you go — all you need to know before a 6:30 start on a beautiful fall night before a big soccer night crowd. Much like recent games, Watertown got off to a good start and controlled the play early. The back line of Shea, Brennock, Marques and Shrestha was anticipating the play and pushing the ball up field. Galeano, Anker, Hughes, Kurth, Salvi and Foley were handling the tempo up front. And only 6 minutes in Gavin Foley, with an assist to Salvi found an opening from 25-yards out nailed a ball to the top right corner for a 1-0 Watertown lead. Twelve minutes later Foley struck again with an assist from Anker to make it 2-0.

Sports

JIM’S VIEW: Watertown Football Dominates From Start to Finish In Final Non-League Tune-up

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Watertown Football opened the season at home on Sept. 5 and lost a hard-fought game 36-22 to Whittier. Twenty-one days later the Raiders finally got to play home game number two on the schedule, and it was everything they wished for, and then some. Watertown scored on the opening drive, and on this night it would have been enough, but Watertown scored four more times on the way to a 35-0 defeat of Brookline. Watertown’s reward for moving to 2-1 on the season? The start of league play, on the road, at 3-0 Stoneham, coming off a bye week. But that’s a story for another day.  

Friday night, coming off their own bye week, the Raiders looked sharp on both sides of the ball.  Exhibit A … After Brookline won the toss and deferred, Watertown received the opening kick off and then proceeded to go on a 15-play drive, covering 75 yards and ending with a QB keeper for the first score of the game. The drive took almost 11 minutes, ladies and gentleman, and included six first downs, and a highlight reel of plays by Patrick McHugh both running and catching the ball. QB Coleman Keuchkarian-McKeen used his wheels effectively as well, twice keeping the drive alive with first-down runs.

Sports

JIM’S VIEW: Field Hockey Wastes No Time Getting Back To Their Winning Ways

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Watertown Field Hockey expects to be the best. They practice hard. They train and play year-round. They have a legendary coach in her 40th year who cares about her players, cares about teaching the sport, but also cares about teaching life-lessons. So, while no one feels sorry for Watertown after they lost for the first time since 2019 on Tuesday, players were certainly eager to learn from the loss and move on towards their ultimate goal — another State title. Watertown did just that Thursday afternoon, shutting out Wakefield 8-0. The first half was played under a steady rain, but didn’t cause much in the way of slipping or errant play. Watertown controlled the action, but just couldn’t find the back of the cage. The Raiders were even awarded a penalty stroke (aka, penalty shot), but Kaylee Master was stonewalled by the Wakefield goaltender.

Sports

JIM’S VIEW: Boys Soccer Remains Undefeated After Pulling Out a 2-2 Tie

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Are you a half-empty or half-full sports fan? Wednesday night’s Boys soccer game would put that question to the test. Was Watertown the better team and just ran into some hard luck, but found a way to salvage a tie? Or did the Raiders let a win slip away because of a few lapses and are fortunate to even get a tie? Or is the truth somewhere in-between? Who knows, but ultimately all that matters is what the young men in Watertown uniforms think, and how they respond Saturday night at home versus second place Melrose.

Sports

JIM’S VIEW: Watertown Field Hockey’s Streak Ends in Battle of 2024 State Champs

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Coaches often speak in cliches. Kids gave it their all… Every game is a big game… We learned a lot about ourselves tonight… and so on. All those cliches would be true after tonight’s non-league game between Somerset Berkley and Watertown at Victory Field. Watertown came into the game as four-time defending Division 3 Champs, 6-0 in 2025 and on a 103 undefeated streak spanning more than five seasons. Somerset came into the contest with one loss and a title, having won the Division 2 State title in 2024. Something had to give on a warm and muggy third night of Fall.  What everyone in attendance was treated to was an exciting and hard-fought high school athletic contest, one that reminded one and all why athletic competition can be so cool, so fun, and so heartbreaking. Is it really fair to characterize tonight’s loss as heartbreaking when you haven’t lost in 103 straight games? Sure. Competition is competition, streak or no streak, and Watertown’s squad left it all out there on the field tonight. By the end of the game, co-captain’s Ava Lamacchia and Sophia Setouhi were fighting leg cramps, for example. And you know what, the challenge of this evening seemed to me to be simply wanting to beat a Div.

Sports

JIM’S VIEW: Watertown Field Hockey Keeps on Trucking Against Stoneham

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Of Watertown’s first five games this Fall, only one was at home, back on Sept. 9th. It was a classic though, as Watertown edged Belmont 2-1 to reach the century mark undefeated for the second time in the program’s illustrious history. Thursday, on a beautiful and warm late-summer day, the Raiders played the first of five straight at home against the 0-3-3 Spartans. Watertown was looking to go to 6-0 on the young season. Coach Donahue’s squad did what it so often does — win — by completely controlling this game. Final score, Watertown 5 Stoneham 0.