English boys defeat St. Mary’s in shootout, 2-1

LYNN – In a game where the first 60 minutes were designed for the real soccer fan, the last 20 minutes and the shootout excited everyone who attended this hard-fought matchup between the English and St. Mary’s boys in the first round of the Lynn City Soccer Tournament on Wednesday.English won the shootout, 3-1, and the game, 2-1.St Mary’s will play Tech in the consolation game on Saturday at 3 p.m. English will play Classical on Saturday for the boys championship at 7 p.m.English, under coach Kerry King, uses a well-disciplined short passing game to get the ball into scoring range. Last night, it worked until the Bulldogs got to the Spartans penalty area; then it fell apart. One too many passes, poor choice of shots, or keeper Andrew Lamacchia put a stop to any English scoring hopes.St Mary’s, with head coach Al Jackson sidelined for two games due to knee surgery, was coached by Davis Lamacchia and Melissa Jackson. The St. Mary’s style of play last night was long ball: Put the ball down the wings and force English to defend deep in the corners. The English defense, directed by keeper Eric Hamlin, was equal to the task and at the half there was no score.At the 54th minute, a Spartan goal was disallowed because of a hand ball. Finally, in the 60th minute, English broke the scoring drought when Alex Alvarez hit Achille Manuelo with a perfect through ball, and he beat Lamacchia to the far corner to make the score English 1, St. Mary’s 0. In the celebration, Manuelo received his second yellow card, which becomes a red card, and he was ejected from the game. As a result of the red card, Manuelo will be suspended for two games. English had to play one man down for the remainder of the game. This proved to be costly when, four minutes from completion, St.Mary’s captain Chris Kefalas put the ball past Hamlin to tie the game. The assist went to Alex Glover. The game ended in a 1-1 tie for record purposes, but in this game there has to be a winner, so the teams went straight to a shootout. English won the toss and had to shoot first. A shoot out is the best of five shooters. The first shooter was English’s Mubarak Nyang, a junior midfielder. He scored to make it 1-0. Glover was the first Spartan shooter, and he scored to tie it at 1-1. The second English shooter, Alvarez, missed wide of the net. The second Spartan shooter, Kefalas, could not beat Hamlin as the keeper dove to his right to deflect the shot out of bounds. The score was still 1-1. The third Bulldog shooter, Kevin Garduno, missed over the crossbar. The third Spartan shooter was the keeper, Lamacchia. He hit the crossbar and the ball bounced away. English’s fourth shooter, co-captain Ulisis Guevara, beat Lamacchia to the corner to make the shootout score 2-1. St Mary’s fourth shooter, Davis Calef, also hit the crossbar and when English’s fifth shooter, Gabe Smith, converted his shot, it was all over.