Unfortunately, for the Wellesley Raiders’ lacrosse program, we’ve been here a few times before. After a dominant regular season for both the boys’ and girls’ lacrosse teams, which earned both teams a No. 2 ranking in the state by the Boston Globe, their seasons fell to an all too familiar end as both the boys and girls were eliminated by the Medfield Warriors and the Westwood Wolverines, respectively. For the Lady Raiders, this is the fourth consecutive year they have been eliminated in tournament play by the Wolverines. While the last two years the contests between these two teams have ended…

This week, the MIAA State Tournament kicked off for spring varsity teams in Massachusetts and once again the Wellesley Raiders’ baseball and both boys and girls lacrosse teams have all qualified. In this week’s “Wellesley’s Sports Story” we take a look at some of each team’s strengths and what to watch out for in the upcoming weeks. Baseball In his fifth year as the Wellesley skipper, coach Rob Kane has seen his ball club put away their best regular season under his tenure as the Raiders took home 15 wins on the season to earn the number five seed in the South Division 2 bracket. Wellesley …

While baseball coach Rob Kane’s starting lineup has been made up by a number of players with little varsity experience heading into the season, the fact is, as we approach season’s end, the loss of 11 seniors from last year’s roster has had little to no impact on this team this season. After wrapping up their 12th win of the year with a 6-1 win over Natick on Wednesday, the Raiders have already reached their highest win total since Kane was named head coach in 2007. With three games remaining on Wellesley’s schedule heading into Thursday’s contest with Newton North, the Raiders have an …

In an interview earlier this season, Rocky Batty, head coach of the boys’ lacrosse team stated that he uses the Raiders’ games against Medfield as a measuring stick for where the Wellesley program is currently. In the past several years, the Warriors have been the class of Division 2 boys lacrosse in the state, and had proven to be a hurdle the Raiders had just not been able to climb over as Wellesley dropped seven straight contests to them, including four eliminations from the MIAA State Tournament. But the tides changed when the two teams met up on April 9, as the Raiders got out in front …

If you've taken in a Wellesley Raiders baseball game this season, there’s a good chance you saw at least one tremendous play from the shortstop position. Fielding that position is none other than Wellesley senior Blake Dowling who, after coming off of a basketball season in which he was the Bay State Conference’s most valuable player, has shown significant improvement on the diamond, building off of what was already a solid junior season. But it almost didn’t happen. After spending two seasons with the junior varsity baseball team, Dowling was concerned heading into his junior year. With 11 …

As we saw even in just the past 24 hours, with some rain and some sun, cold temperatures and warm, predicting the weather in New England during the spring can be tough. But over the past several seasons, one spring prediction that is almost a given is that Wellesley’s girls lacrosse team will be atop the Bay State Conference. That is once again the case as we approach the halfway point of the 2011 season, as the Raiders hold a 7-1-1 record (6-0 BSC), and are steamrolling some of the local competition having just come off of a 15-1 win over the Weymouth Wildcats on Tuesday. The Raiders have …

With the loss of 11 key contributors to the Wellesley Raiders’ baseball team over the past two seasons, it would have been understandable to some fans if the program took a step back in 2011. But what would be the fun in that? Through nine games, the Raiders have stormed out to a 6-3 record overall, 3-1 in the Bay State Conference, and it should be noted that two of those losses came against state powerhouses Xaverian and Catholic Memorial, which coach Rob Kane deems “exclusion games” and don’t count against the Raiders’ official record. The prevailing thought entering the year was that …

Heading into the 2011 season, questions surrounded the Wellesley Raiders’ baseball team as to how they would respond to the loss of 11 seniors from last year’s club. However, one area has basically been answered since the start of the 2008 campaign. That is the top of the Raiders’ pitching rotation, as the ace of the staff, Dan Dymecki, would be returning for his senior season. While the entire team has to this point responded to any uncertainty, coming out of the gates with a 5-2 record (2-0 Bay State Conference), Dymecki has been especially dominant with a 3-0 record, posting 31 strikeouts …

Fans of the Wellesley Raiders boys lacrosse team have seen it fall into a trend each of the past four seasons. Typically, the team plays at a high level throughout the regular season while earning one of the top MIAA tournament seeds in the East Division 2 bracket, steam rolls its way through a couple of rounds, until ultimately having its season end at the hands of the Medfield Warriors. To add insult to injury, Medfield has also handed the Raiders three regular season losses over that time. Despite the team not posting a win against the Warriors since 2006, Wellesley head coach Rocky Batty …

At the conclusion of the spring season, the girls' lacrosse team will not only have to deal with the loss of another talented senior class, they will also need to prepare to move on without their coach. After 30 years on the coaching staffs of Wellesley’s field hockey and girls lacrosse teams, Chris Molonea is retiring as the head coach of both teams. “I’ve reached the point where I can retire at the max,” says Molonea. “It’s a combination of years of service and your age so.. I’m at that max point.” Under Molonea, the field hockey and girls' lacrosse teams have enjoyed terrific success, …

It may seem hard to believe with what we woke up to this morning, but (as of now) the baseball season begins for Wellesley on Monday when the Raiders travel to Wayland to take on the Warriors. Wellesley will have a bit of a different look on the diamond in 2011, as 11 players from last year’s roster graduated last June. With many new faces on his club, coach Rob Kane, who is entering his fifth year as the Raiders’ skipper, sees his team taking a different approach at the plate with the loss of a number of sluggers fans have been accustomed to seeing in his lineup over the past few seasons. “…

Despite freezing temperatures and even some snow on Monday, the girls lacrosse team began practices this week at Sprague Field in anticipation of the 2011 season. Wellesley returns after falling to the Westwood Wolverines for the third straight year. This rivalry has produced some tough losses for the Raiders over that time, but none more heartbreaking than the 14-12 overtime loss Wellesley endured last June. After trailing 9-5 more than halfway into the second half, the Raiders went on a 6-1 scoring run to gain an 11-10 lead and hope of finally getting past the Wolverines and into the state …

Editor's note: This is part two in a two-part series. Here is part one. In August of 2009, as Luke Day prepared for another school year at Wellesley, and high expectations on the basketball court, he and his wife Kristan received wonderful news in their personal life; Kristan was pregnant with twins. With a two-year old son, Joseph, at home and now infant twins on the way, Day had some decisions to make regarding his future with the Wellesley program. To him though, there really wasn’t a choice. Basketball was going to have to take a back seat for the foreseeable future. “I knew it, and it …

It was a year ago this week that the basketball community in Wellesley was dealt the shocking news that Luke Day, head coach of the boys varsity basketball team, would not be back for a ninth season. The Raiders were coming off of an 11-7 '09-10 campaign in which they made the tournament for the first time since 2007, and would be returning a very talented senior class the following season. As tough as that was to leave behind, Day and his wife Kristan were expecting twins by season’s end, and a full-time teaching job, along with his basketball duties and now three young children at home …

Typically, football is described as being a game of inches, but last Friday’s Division 1 South quarterfinals girls basketball game between Wellesley and Braintree certainly was deserving of that label. The Raiders fell to the Wamps 40-41. There are “what if’s” and “could have’s” that for Wellesley fans surround the outcome of this game. After everything the Raiders had to overcome, and as bleak as things looked with 1.1 seconds remaining and the team down by one, an almost perfectly executed play between Shannon Magpiong and Tierra Allen may have changed Wellesley’s destiny entirely for the …

Girls' Hockey For the second time in three years, what looked to be a very promising season heading into tournament play for the girls ice hockey team was cut short, as the Raiders fell to the Canton Bulldogs Monday night 6-4. It was a very tight contest as the two teams were deadlocked 3-3 more than halfway through the third period.  However, with six minutes remaining in regulation, Canton’s Megan McKenna put the Bulldogs ahead after the Raiders were not able to clear the puck from their own end. Wellesley responded two minutes later when Molly Connolly found the back of the net to tie the …

In his last regular season game with the Wellesley Raiders boys’ basketball team, Armand Menegay made it one he won’t soon forget. The senior big man put up 13 points, eight rebounds and five blocks in the Raiders’ 55-47 win over the Hopkinton Hillers on Tuesday night. The performance included a rare dunk that electrified Larsson gym, and a block in the game’s final seconds that helped preserve the win. In his two years with the varsity club, Menegay has been a match-up nightmare for opposing teams. His size alone demands that opponents pay respect to him in the paint, but it’s his ability to…

The setting couldn’t have been much better last Friday. Playing her last regular season home game on Senior Night, with the man who set the NBA’s all time 3-poing scoring record the night before in attendance, Blake Dietrick set a mark of her own, passing Maggie Miller to become Wellesley’s all-time leading scorer for girls’ basketball. Already up 15 points, just 2:15 into the second quarter in last Friday's game against Norwood, Dietrick needed two points to tie the record. She did one better tossing up a three to score the 1,280th point of her career, standing alone as the record holder. It…

With just over a week to go in the regular season, the Wellesley High School boys’ basketball team is in the driver’s seat to bring home their first Herget Division championship in over 10 years. While showing flashes over the past two seasons, but never quite able to get over the hump to become one of the Bay State Conference’s elite teams, the Raiders have shown this year that they can not only play with some of the league’s best, but in most cases they have beaten them. Before Tuesday’s loss to Walpole, the Raiders put together seven straight wins, including a victory over Newton North, a …

The 2010-2011 winter season has been a successful one to this point for all of the Wellesley basketball and ice hockey teams.  Heading into the final weeks of the regular season, the boys’ ice hockey team is three points away from securing a state tournament berth, which if that happens will send all four teams to the playoffs for the second year in a row as the others have already stamped their tickets to the dance. Mathematically, each of the teams still has an opportunity to win the Herget Division.  Regardless of where the teams finish, March looks to be an entertaining month for …