There is perfection.
And then there is Watertown field hockey. Which is something more.
Eileen Donahue’s Raiders play Dennis-Yarmouth in a Division 3 quarterfinal game at aptly named Victory Field Saturday at 11 a.m.
Watertown is seeking a third straight state title. And things look pretty good for the Raiders. They are 19-0 and have scored 128 goals while allowing zero.
That’s right. Folks around the team estimate that Watertown goalie Ava Husson has stopped only about 10 shots this season. Husson could study for the SATs while guarding the net. The ball is almost never down at her end of the field.
“She hasn’t seen many shots at all,” said Donahue. “The group in front of her is really strong. Everyone in front of her works their best to not let it get in front of our goalie.”
Going back to November of 2019, the Raiders have won 72 consecutive games. They have blanked their opponents in 39 straight games. They haven’t given up a goal since September of 2022.
Celtics legend Bill Russell wrote about this phenomenon eloquently in “Second Wind — The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man” with Taylor Branch way back in 1979.
“Every so often a Celtic game would heat up so that it became more than a physical or even mental game, and would be magical … I remember the fifth and final game of the 1965 championship series when we opened the fourth quarter ahead of the Lakers by 16 points … and then we simply took off into unknown peaks and ran off 20 straight points to go up by 36 … I remember being disappointed that the Lakers were not better.”
I thought of this while watching the Watertown Raiders play St. Mary’s of Lynn at Victory Field in a state tournament game Tuesday afternoon.
Family, friends, and supporters of perfection arrived at the field with zero anxiety and no expectation of drama. Going to a Watertown field hockey game is sort of like going to a high school production of “Our Town.” There’s none of the traditional suspense about who might win. It’s all about the quality of the performance.
On Tuesday, the Raiders encountered more pushback than they got in their 2023 Middlesex League campaign. St. Mary’s brought some ice hockey toughness to the field and Watertown won by a mere 5-0.
Usually, it’s 7-0. That’s the limit. Coach Donahue doesn’t like running up the score and insists her girls stop shooting once their lead gets to 7-0. Sixteen of Watertown’s 19 wins this year featured final scores of 7-0.
In most of the games, the Raiders scored seven before halftime and spent the second half working on stickhandling, spacing, and ball possession. Watertown scored seven goals in the first nine minutes of its regular-season finale against Wakefield, then played keep-away for the final 51 minutes, never shooting at the goal. Donahue is no Geno Auriemma.
“If we happen to get at least six or seven goals, we don’t try to score,” said Donahue, who has coached the Raiders for 38 years and won 20 state championships. “I just never believed in it. I never believed you could turn that into a positive. And it’s helped our teams because sometimes you get more of a workout moving that ball.”
Yikes. How does Donahue prevent her players from taking shots on the net for easy goals?
“Because I tell them not to,” said the coach.
I asked junior Caroline Andrade if anyone had ever taken a shot on goal once the Raiders were ahead, 7-0.
“Not since I’ve been here,” said Andrade, who scored twice in Tuesday’s rout.
“We know better,” added BU-bound Molly Driscoll, a senior who potted three Tuesday and had a fourth goal called back because of a rules infraction. “It would probably mean a lot of running.”
Coach Donahue runs a tight ship. She is the Bill Belichick of Massachusetts high school field hockey.
One of seven children (four boys, three girls), Donahue played field hockey at Belmont High, then four years of lacrosse at Northeastern before taking over as Watertown’s field hockey coach in 1986. She carries lessons learned from her father, Jack Donahue, a funeral home director and sculptor of souls who coached youth sports in Belmont.
“When you come in to the program, ‘yes’ means ‘yes,’ ‘no’ means ‘no,’ ” Eileen Donahue said. “There’s no in-between.
“Some people have to learn that there’s a commitment. I’ve had really great families that have respected how I’ve coached. Not everyone goes home happy, but that’s OK. I challenge them, but we figure it out. I think I’ve stayed the same.
“There’s no way for me to have to change. You’ve got to come my way. Your daughter is going to be coached. Your daughter is not going to be ignored.”
Patty Grady, a Watertown police officer, won two championships while playing for Donahue in the early 1990s. She has had three daughters play for her former coach — Maggie Driscoll (now playing at BU), this year’s tricaptain Molly, and freshman Regan, who is hoping to win more championships than her mother and sisters.
“Playing for Coach Donahue was just different,” Grady said while watching her daughter score three goals. “When I was in high school here, I played tennis and it was casual. I’d drive to practice and say, ‘What’s up?’ In field hockey, Coach Donahue held you to a different standard.”
“She wants you to get better,” said Andrade. “She’s demanding, but in a good way.”
Dominance of this nature is not random. Watertown offers middle school field hockey, and Donahue’s Saturday youth clinics and summer camps give Watertown girls an opportunity to learn the game starting as early as the age of 5.
The Raiders have a relatively small student population, which puts them in Division 3 at tourney time — a competitive advantage against schools with none of Watertown’s field hockey tradition. Things would be much harder in Division 1 against the likes of Walpole, which is why Donahue schedules scrimmages against Walpole’s Porkers every year.
Watertown won a late October scrimmage vs. Walpole, 2-1.
Imagine that. Somebody actually scored a goal against the Raiders.
Now let’s see if anybody in Division 3 can do it in a game that counts.
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at daniel.shaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him @dan_shaughnessy.