WHS Sports Roundup

Fall II Season Gets Underway for Soccer, Football, Volleyball

These strangest of times amidst the pandemic continues in the realm of high school athletics when the so-called Fall II sports season officially gets underway this week for the Winthrop High football, volleyball, and boys and girls soccer teams.

Winthrop school officials elected to postpone the traditional fall sports until the early spring pursuant to the MIAA’s policy to allow for a Fall II sports season.

For the Winthrop High boys and girls soccer teams, this means they will be competing against rivals from the Commonwealth Athletic Conference, starting with KIPP Academy Charter School this Monday. The Lady Vikings will travel to KIPP (which stands for Knowledge Is Power Program), while coach Kyle Gagin and his boys’ squad will host the KIPPsters at Miller Field at 4:00.

Both the boys and girls will engage in a return match with KIPP on Wednesday. The home-and-home series will be the primary feature for almost all of Winthrop’s opponents in the Fall II soccer season, which will conclude on April 21.

“This is a very different year, in a different season, and being in a different league will make for an interesting and unknown season,” said long-time WHS girls head coach Tracey Martucci. “But we are very lucky to be able to have a season for these athletes and that’s all that matters.”

The 2021 team will be led by a quartet of senior captains, twins Maura and Jenna Dorr, Lily Skomro, and Grace Galuris. 

“Our first week went very well,” noted Martucci. “Despite trying to adjust from usually starting our season in 90 degree weather to starting in the 30s, the girls handled it with no problem.”

Assisting Martucci on the sidelines in the coaching department will be former WHS star Julie Dowson and Martucci’s dad, former WHS head coach Jerry Gigliello, who also will serve as the JV coach.

“We are looking forward to a safe and healthy season,” Martucci added.

One of the positives for Viking sports fans of the Fall II sports season is that it will give Maura Dorr the opportunity to add to her WHS school record of career goals scored, a mark she set as a junior in 2019 (which seems like a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away).

Dorr broke the record that had been held by her assistant coach, Julie Dowson, about 10 years earlier, who in turn had broken the record set by her coach, Tracey Martucci, in the 1990s.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the lost fall season for WHS fans was the loss of football. The Vikings were set to feature a veteran crew, many of whom had been starters from their freshman year. 

However, the Fall II season will give the senior Viking gridsters the opportunity to close out their WHS football careers in strong fashion.

“We are extremely happy and grateful to have the opportunity to play this great game,” said second-year head-coach Jon Cadigan. “The team has put in a lot of work since our last game 15 months ago.  We have a talented and experienced senior class who is ready to compete. We have one goal in mind and that is to win the league title and add another conference championship banner. The senior class is looking to put Winthrop football back on top of the NEC.”

Cadigan and his crew are scheduled to travel to Marblehead today (Thursday) for a pre-season scrimmage and then will open their 2021 campaign next Saturday (March 12) at Peabody.

The season will consist of seven games extending through April 24. The one big drawback however, is that the Viking seniors will not have a chance to take on — and beat — Revere, which had won the last three Thanksgiving Day games between the two archrivals. The Patriots now are playing in the Greater Boston League and there are no inter-league contests on the Fall II schedule.

The WHS volleyball team will have the honor of officially opening the Fall II season tonight  (Thursday) at 5:30 when the Lady Vikings, who will be led by co-coaches Lauren Kostegan and Rachel DelSolio, host Swampscott.  The Lady Vikings will trek to Saugus on Tuesday and will be back home against Marblehead next Thursday. The team will play an 11-game schedule through April 15.