St. John’s Prep soccer defeats Malden Catholic 4-0

DANVERS – Go to any dictionary and look up the word juggernaut. In my dictionary, you would not find any words, just the picture of the St. John’s varsity soccer team. As of today’s game, St John’s has an undefeated streak of 36 games dating back to its last loss in the 2005 state tourney. The Eagles are 2006 defending Division 1 boys state champions. Dave Crowell is the coach who has brought this all about. He was the boys coach in Lynnfield until moving to the Prep to teach and coach, and he brought this current team into Wednesday’s clash with the Lancers from Malden Catholic. The Prep won, 4-0, to improve to 7-0-5 (3-0-2 in the Catholic Conference). Alex Farr of Nahant had a hat trick for the Eagles.When asked about his schedule, Crowell replied, “We only play eight league games, so we must try to fill out the schedule with 12 nonleague games. Not many teams want to play us. We travel to Haverhill, Lawrence, Shrewsbury, and into Connecticut for games as well as games with Beverly and Masconomet.”When asked about yesterday’s opponent, Crowell said, “We just barely beat them earlier this season in Malden. The score was 2-1. They were very strong in the defensive end.”MC coach Rene Novoa, whose Lancer team has a record of 4-5-3 (1-4 in the Catholic Conference), commented that “My team plays well for the first half, then they seem to lose their concentration in the second half. We stayed with them the last time we played.”St. John’s opened the game by pressuring the Lancers all over the field, forcing poor passes and missed kicks by the Lancers. This paid off in the 12th minute. Malden Catholic was playing the offside trap most of the game, trying to catch the very fast Eagle strikers in an offside position. The trap was working and the Prep was called for four offsides in the first ten minutes. But this time the trap failed and defender Stephen Gaudet sent in Alexander Farr all alone from 30 yards out. He drew the keeper out and beat the sliding keeper to the left side. This made the score Prep 1, MC 0.The Prep was a dominant force throughout the rest of the first half, limiting the Lancers to two shots on the Eagle keeper, Doug Wilson, both of which he easily saved. With less than a minute to go till halftime, wing Evan Ersing beat three MC defenders with the dribble, took the ball to the left end line and crossed it to Farr, who headed it under the diving keeper, Nick Barbati, to make the score Prep 2, MC 0. The half ended 10 seconds after the restart.The second half started with a new keeper for MC, freshman Kyle Lewis. It took only five minutes into the second half for the Prep to score again. The Lancers were still trying to play the offside trap, and in the 45th minute, Ersing picked up the ball at midfield, and with a burst of speed, he broke through the back line of MC defenders and was in all alone from midfield. The Lancer defenders couldn’t catch him, and as he entered the area, the keeper came off his line as Ersing left-footed it into the low right corner to put the score at Prep 3, MC 0.Ten minutes later, Farr scored his third goal on a pass from defender Tom Lockwood, who played it towards the Lancer sweeper, who was the only MC field player in his end of the field. Farr stole the ball from the sweeper and was in alone on the beleaguered Malden Catholic keeper. Farr faked the keeper into diving, went around him, and had the empty net in front of him. His goal made the score 4-0, Prep.Both teams then emptied their benches and the last 25 minutes of the game had no further scoring. After the game, Crowell said, “Our defenders played extremely well. They kept most of the pressure off keeper Doug Wilson. He only had three saves. Farr had his usual outstanding game.”