This article is a part of 12-piece series for The Times’ 2025 “Year in Review.” Click here for the print version.
We upped our Island-wide and high school sports coverage at The Times this year with a new monthly newsletter, the MV Sportsletter, and there was no shortage of players and teams to write about.
The highlight of our coverage was when the high school’s girls varsity soccer team, which celebrated a historic season overall, won the Cape and Islands league championship for the first time since 1999, after defeating the Nantucket Whalers away in October. The rivalry game against Nantucket, hailed as the coveted “Battle of the Atlantic,” also earned the Vineyard girls soccer team a third consecutive year with the coveted Golden Anchor trophy. To round out the memorable season, the girls soccer team also won a record-breaking penalty shootout against the North Reading High School Hornets in the second round of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association playoffs, scoring 21 penalty shots to the Hornets’ 20. The shootout advanced the Vineyarders to the quarterfinals, where the girls fell in a heartbreaking game to the Tewksbury High School Redmen.
The boys varsity soccer team also reversed its fate and recovered the Golden Anchor trophy from the Nantucket Whalers in October, defeating the rivals in a shootout 4-2.
It wasn’t all good news, though. In football, the famous Island Cup against Nantucket, set to take place in November, was canceled after numerous injuries and multiple players’ suspensions for off-field infractions resulted in a severely reduced roster for the Vineyard team.
Meanwhile, local athletes pushed themselves to raise money for local communities and educate the youth. In September, Hall of Fame windsurfer and Islander Nevin Sayre wing-foiled around the Island for the second time, cutting his time by over an hour from the previous year, and raising over $50,000 for Martha’s Vineyard Community Services.
Elsewhere on the waterfront, Hurricane Erin’s winds forced many of the Vineyard’s southern beaches to close down, but not everyone steered clear of the shoreline. The powerful swells ignited the hearts of local surfers, who took to beaches like Mondrian House to catch the big waves. Also in September, a surf camp at Long Point Beach invited 13 eager sixth graders to learn the basics of catching waves under Garrett McNamara, a world renowned big-wave surfing pioneer and the main focus of HBO’s documentary “100-Foot Wave,” as part of a new pilot program aimed at educating youth about the power and peace of the ocean.
Other headlines:
Running, walking and joy at Jabberwocky 5K
Wingfoiler circumnavigates the Island
Girls soccer claims first Cape and Islands championship
Vineyard seniors ‘heartbroken’ by Island cup forfeit
Vineyard girls soccer advance after epic, historic shootout