Needham Boys Soccer Captures 300th Cup

Despite heavy rain and wind throughout the course of Wednesday’s Bay State Conference clash between Needham and Dedham, the Rockets boys varsity soccer team scored early and often en route to a 10-1 victory over the Marauders.

“You’re always happy to get [the first win] under your belt,” Needham’s head coach Don Brock said after the game, which was played on .

“We have a fairly skilled team and they’re very young," Brock said. "We only have four to five seniors on the squad, so we had two kids with hat-tricks, and I know probably Dedham was a little upset that we probably kept scoring, but we’re trying to get [our guys ready] for the big games coming up like Brookline on Friday.”

Dedham’s Ioannis Siokis notched the first goal of the contest before Needham’s offense erupted for four first-half goals, which gave the Rockets a commanding lead that was never relinquished.

Nolan Brady scored the team’s first official goal of the season, which was followed up by Harry Swartz, Donald Silverman and Eric Udelson. In the second half, the Rockets piled on six more goals, three of which came off the foot of Mac Steeves. Swartz added two more goals during the final 40 minutes too, which also gave him a hat-trick. 

“Obviously Dedham scored first, so we had to rally ourselves and score a few goals and we ended up doing it,” Steeves said. “We sort of went on a rampage and scored 10 other goals, so it was a good result.” 

The Marauders never showed any fight after their first goal; however, head coach Paul Podolski seemed rather proud of his team’s effort, despite the grueling loss after the game.

“I thought early on we played pretty well [and] they exploited individual weaknesses that we had, [but] I thought collectively in the first half we did a nice job. We generated four to five pretty good scoring chances. In the second half, they beat us a lot one-on-one and I think their skill level is high,” Podolski said.

The coach continued by stating, “We’re just going to have to try and regroup and do better, but congratulations to Needham and job well done.”

Besides earning their first official win of the season, the Rockets also won the inaugural 300th Cup, which celebrates Needham’s tercentennial that began back in January of this year. Both towns were connected to one another until 1711, which was when Needham branched off to form its own community.

“It doesn’t really mean much; it’s just like a regular game, so it’s soccer, it’s fun,” Steeves said with a grin.

“It’s interesting. We’re doing it in all sports, I guess, [but] it’s nice to be part of the ceremony of the town’s celebration, and I guess we go against Dedham because we pulled away from them initially,” Brock said.

The Rockets will return to the pitch on Friday, as they’ll host Brookline while the Marauders will travel to Wellesley.