BROCKTON – St. Mary’s 40-14 loss to Cardinal Spellman Friday night can be explained pretty easily: The bigger team just wore the smaller team down.In coach Matt Durgin’s second year at the helm, the Spartans are starting to take on the characteristics of his old team down the street and around the corner. Durgin has cultivated a bevy of speedy, shifty running backs and some fast receivers. But last night, at Potvin Field, size won it. Spellman was bigger up front, and its runners feasted between the tackles.”We ran into a very good football team,” Durgin said. “Their record going in (3-6) was deceiving, because they lost to a lot of good teams (in the nonleague portion of the Cardinals’ schedule).”In fact, Spellman is now 3-1 in the Catholic Central/Large with only Archbishop Williams to go. St. Mary’s finishes the league portion of its schedule at 2-3, but is 6-4 overall. The Spartans wrap their season up on Thanksgiving Eve against Lynn Tech.”(Spellman) wore us down,” Durgin admitted. “They were very physical up front. They have good size, and they’re a good football team.”St. Mary’s started out as if it would run Spellman right out of the stadium. On its first series, and only six plays in, Todd Collier broke through on a third-and-eight for a 35-yard touchdown run straight up the middle with 8:09 left in the first quarter.But before anyone could start feeling too comfortable about that, Jordan Williams took the ensuing kickoff at the 25 and ran 75 yards, practically untouched, and then kicked the PAT to make it 7-6.The irony here is that Spellman resorted to squib kicks the entire game to keep the ball away from St. Mary’s speedy returners.Spellman scored the next time it had the ball, launching a 10-play, 63-yard drive that consumed the second half of the first quarter. The Cardinals finally scored, on Blaise Branch’s four-yard run, on the first play of the second quarter.St. Mary’s calmly came right back, with quarterback Cam Mulvey finding a ridiculously-open Ryan Barrows for a 49-yard scoring strike. Somehow, Barrows simply outran Spellman’s coverage, and Mulvey put the ball on the money. Collier’s conversion rush made it 14-13, St. Mary’s, with 9:10 to go in the half.The game began to feature methodical marches by Spellman and quick strikes by St. Mary’s. True to form, Spellman went on another long march from its own 35, this one culminating in Branch’s six-yard run, and the Cardinals regained the lead, 19-14.The half ended with a 14-play drive by St. Mary’s that stalled on the Spellman 25, and when things picked up, ball control began dominating quick strike. Spellman kept the ball for the first 8:03 of the third quarter – a 13-play, 66-yard drive that ended, once again, with a Branch touchdown, from eight yards out. Quarterback Zac Cooney kept the conversion, and Spellman was up by 13 ? and counting.St. Mary’s couldn’t get started in the second half, and Spellman took full advantage. Branch scored his fourth touchdown of the night when he broke through for a 63-yard run; and Brent Wilmont wrapped up the scoring with 6:00 left in the game on a 47-yard touchdown run.”For the most part,” Durgin said, “I was pleased with the effort. We played well for large stretches, but if you come down to Cardinal Spellman to play, you’d better be ready to play all four quarters.”