FILE PHOTO.
St. Mary’s golfers Ryan Turenne, left, and Andrew Kreamer share a laugh during a Spartans golf match. St. Mary’s has lost just one match at home this season.
By Katie Morrison
Tuesday, before the Danvers-Swampscott boys soccer game, I overheard Danvers coach Pawel Brzykcy talking to his team about adjusting to Swampscott’s field. The Falcons, who play their home games at the new Dr. Deering Stadium with an artificial turf field, hadn’t played a game on grass in a while, and had to adjust to the way the ball acted on the damp grass field.
In the end, the venue didn’t matter much, since Danvers won 2-1, the same result as when it played Swampscott on the Falcons’ home turf. But it did get me thinking about the concept of home field advantage, and which teams have an edge when they play on their home turf or grass.
One league where every team has some kind of home field advantage is in the Catholic Central. When you’re traveling as far as Brockton for a 4 p.m. game, it can take some time to shake the rust off after sitting in traffic on Rte. 93. Like in Wednesday’s matchup between the St. Mary’s and Spellman boys soccer at Manning Field. The Spartans put two quick ones on the board, and the game was all but over after 10 minutes.
Obviously a huge part of that is the fact that St. Mary’s is the better team. But spending more than an hour on the bus on the way to the game isn’t going to help any team get off to a fast start.
In field hockey, the game is completely different depending on what type of field it’s played on. Games on turf are much more fast-paced than on grass, obviously. So when a team like Marblehead (turf) goes to Swampscott to play at Blocksidge Field, it has to adjust and play the Big Blue’s style of field hockey. Maybe that contributed to the scoreless tie when the Magicians played the Big Blue in Swampscott, one of their two ties (they’re 11-1-2). It should be interesting to see how the Big Blue, who are good in their own right, will fare .
Oct. 27 when they travel to Marblehead for a rematch.
In my opinion, the sport where home field advantage matters the most is in golf, and that holds especially true for Lynn teams. Gannon is a challenging course with plenty of blind spots, tight fairways and big hills. To use the St. Mary’s golf team as an example, the Spartans have lost just four matches this season, and three of them came on the road. The only other loss was to a tough Malden Catholic team at home.
So while many teams have clinched a berth in the tournament, there’s still plenty to watch for as they try to grab a higher seeding to host a playoff game. After all, there’s no place like home.
— In soccer, while many of the elite teams have already wrapped up tournament berths, there are a couple of teams still on the bubble and fighting for a spot. One of them is the Lynn Tech boys.
I’ll be honest, the Tigers have kind of flown under the radar for me.
Tech started off the season slowly and didn’t earn its first win until Sept. 23 against Mystic Valley. But the Tigers walked away with ties in four of their first seven games. One of those was against Essex Tech, which the Tigers routed, 4-0, on Monday.
All of a sudden, Tech is at .500 at 5-5-4 with four games left to play. One is against Shawsheen, which Tech tied, 1-1, on a last-minute penalty kick back on Sept. 27. Two are against Nashoba Valley, and another against Whittier.
The Tigers have a young group that might be peaking at the right time. It may have taken some time for them to learn to play together as a unit, but Tech has a lot of talent.
— Another team on the cusp is Saugus girls soccer. The Sachems have the misfortunate of being a good team playing in a league with a few elite teams. At 7-5, Saugus is in great position to lock up a tournament spot with winnable games against English, Salem and Gloucester coming up. The Sachems had a big test in Beverly Tuesday, and lost 2-0, but held strong against a very good team.