Medfield High School Coaches 'Frustrated' By Multiple Snowstorms This Season

The Medfield High School athletic department and its winter varsity programs have been dealt plenty of adversity this season from Mother Nature.

The constant changes to game schedule and the lost practices due to snow days have made for a frustrating season for many coaches at Medfield High this winter. That's not to say their sports programs have had frustrating seasons, far from it in fact. The majority of MHS teams are in contention for postseason play – a result of overcoming this winter's challenges on and off the court, rink or track. 

"This winter has been really tough," said Medfield High School Athletic Director Jon Kirby. "You expect to deal with this in the spring with cancelled baseball, softball and tennis games. Winter is usually much more controlled because everything is inside. Hockey is especially tough because ice time is impossible to secure."

Kirby said there is always a tremendous amount of communication that takes place between principals, superintendents and athletic directors when postponing and rescheduling athletic events and that the most important factor when dealing with postponements is athlete and team safety.

"Safety is the most important concern," Kirby said. "Winter teams have a lot of travel concerns as well because so many of our teams compete off campus. Hockey, swim, gymnastics and track all compete and many practice away from the high school."

The Warriors' varsity girls' basketball team is off to a 12-0 start but head coach Mark Nickerson voiced his concern for his team moving forward in their schedule with practices being cancelled and games being rescheduled.

"The snow days have certainly been frustrating," Nickerson said. "As a coach, I like to have everything planned out in advance; when we are going to introduce new offensive plays and additional defensive concepts. We have now missed two practices and three games. There is limited practice time under normal circumstances, the weather has made it even more restrictive in terms of gym use."

Nickerson's squad returns to game action Thursday in Hopkinton after a six-day break. The extended layoff has the potential to create problems in the progress the team has made. 

"Moving forward, it causes problems with having several games pushed together," Nickerson said. "Right now we are scheduled to play three games a week over the next couple of weeks. In terms of our basketball team, our depth is going to be tested – but this could be a huge advantage for us. Between now and February 22 we have 10 games to play against very tough opponents and eight of these games are on the road. We are going to find out what we are made of."

Medfield's boys' basketball coach Herb Grace said the biggest challenge will be making up missed games in short periods of time but found a silver lining in it all.

"We are all in the same boat," said Grace. "It is frustrating. For example, we have to play Hopkinton [Thursday] after two days off and then we have to play at Westwood [Friday]. We can't control the weather."

Girls' hockey coach Molly Norton believes the storms have disrupted her team's momentum on several occasions this season.

"It has been frustrating with the weather this season," Norton said. "We have had three games cancelled due to the snow and one due to the ice condition. It is frustrating for both the girls and coaches because I feel like we have been out of our routine every week since we came back from Christmas break."

The Warriors started the season 9-0 before skating to back-to-back ties against Canton (1-1) and Westwood (2-2). Medfield recorded its 10th win last Saturday against Boston Latin but will go a full week before its next game. 

"It's difficult to build momentum and be consistent when we are averaging one game a week," Norton said. "I am not trying to make excuses but I feel that the two ties we had could have been at least one win. With long layoffs between games, it makes it that much harder to get going in the games."

Overall, Norton is pleased with the way her girls have handled the adversity this season and like the girls' basketball team, welcomes the test of the schedule in the coming weeks.

"Our true test will be in the next couple of weeks when there will be weeks when we play three games," Norton said. 

Staying on the ice, boys' hockey coach Toby Carlow had a simple, yet realistic take on the weather.

"When you really think about it, what can you really do besides complain about it or move to a place where it doesn't snow," Carlow suggested. "This has certainly been a winter like none in recent memory. The thing that has been the most frustrating is the number of practices that have been missed due to weather. There is always concern when you miss practice time but luckily for us, we have been fortunate that the time missed and delay between games has not adversely affected us." 

The Warriors' boys' hockey team is off to a 9-3-2 start this season and faces off against Hopkinton Saturday.