St. Mary’s girls, Classical boys win city soccer tourney titles

LYNN – It was deja vu all over again.The Lynn City Soccer Tournament has been going for four years, and only one school has captured the girls crown every year. This year was no exception.The St. Mary’s girls had a “fourpeat” as they defeated Lynn Classical, 3-0, Saturday at Manning Field.In the boys game, Classical edged English 3-2 to win the championship.Click here for a tournament photo gallery.”We have to rebuild from the goal out,” St. Mary’s girls coach Jim Foley said before the game. “We lost most of our defenders plus our all-everything, Amanda Webster.””We have only one senior,” Rams coach Marcy Durgin said. “The team has 11 sophomores who were battle-tested last year as freshmen. I feel that this experience will help us as we go into the (Northeastern Conference) schedule.”St Mary’s scored three goals in the first 20 minutes. At the 5-minute mark, senior midfielder Courtney Winters opened the scoring with a shot past Classical keeper Mackenzie Coppinger. The assist went to senior striker Michelle Macchione, who passed the ball through two defenders to find Winters unmarked in front of the net.One minute later, Macchione had the honors and she received a great through ball from Brianna Anderson and scored against Coppinger to the short side. All the scoring was wrapped up in the 19th minute, when Rachel Stueve picked up an errant clearing pass off a defender and scored against Coppinger to the low far side.Many individual battles sometimes determine how a game goes. Classical sophomore Jennie Erekson, who does a lot of the distributing and a fair share of the scoring, was covered by St. Mary’s defender Mikaela Donovan. The other Classical attackers were unable to get the ball to Erekson, and that shut down a major part of the Rams offense. The rest of the game was one of both teams substituting freely in order to give their younger players experience for the upcoming season.”We played a good game for the last 60 minutes,” Durgin said. “The first 20 killed us.” She added, “Co-captain Christine Francois played well at defender and co-captain Brianna Capone played well in midfield. We have a few days to get ready for our first league game when we play Salem.””We did some nice things out there,” Foley said. “We are coming together and should be ready for our league season.”BOYSRams captain Miguel Castro was the hero of the boys game. His goal with under two minutes left in regulation was the game-winner in a 3-2 victory over English.In the boys game, English scored first with one minute left in the first half. A beautiful through ball pass from sophomore midfielder Jefferson Fubellah to senior midfielder Alex Mulbah breaking in from the right side of the area set Mulbah alone ten yards out in front of Classical keeper Dammy Dada. Mulbah scored against Dada low left to put English ahead 1-0, which remained the score at halftime.In the 50th minute, Classical struck. An shot on the English keeper, freshman Nick Medeiros, was misplayed and the ball bounced to sophomore Ram striker Abdoulaye Bah, who wasted no time in putting the ball over the keeper into the net to tie the score at 1-1.Seven minutes later, Classical struck again. Bah fired a laser shot at the far corner, but Medeiros made a spectacular diving deflection. The English defenders failed to clear the rebound, however, and Ram striker Salvador Castro had an easy shot and put it in the net. For the first time in the game, Classical led, 2-1.English was relentless as the Bulldogs swarmed all over the Classical defenders, trying to tie up the game. In the 73rd minute, the referee called a tripping foul on a Classical defender in the area and English was awarded a penalty shot. Fubellah took the shot and put the ball inches inside the right post to tie the game at 2-2.The rain picked up in intensity and as everyone was getting ready for a shootout to determine the city champion, the referee called a tripping foul on English in the area, and with less than two minutes