St. Mary’s boys handle North Shore Tech

LYNN – Manning Field turned into a wrestling ring for a time on Sunday as St. Mary’s hosted North Shore Tech in a Division 3 North preliminary game.Click here to see a photo gallery of this gameDespite the Bulldogs best efforts to knock St. Mary’s around to the tune of three yellow cards, a red card and a WWE worthy takedown late in the second half, the Spartans held their cool and dominated throughout a 5-0 win.St. Mary’s (9-8-2) advances to take on No. 1 seed Trinity Catholic today (2:30) in Newton.”I thought that we played awesome,” St. Mary’s coach Mike D’Agostino said. “Our defense was solid and we stayed composed through all the stuff that was going on.”The 5-0 final was about as indicative of how good the Spartans game was on Sunday. Battling through cold temperatures and a stiff wind that made any 50/50 balls an adventure, the Spartans outshot North Shore 15-2 and did not fall into the Bulldogs tact of playing the body at all costs.North Shore0St. Mary’s5 It took only four minutes for the Spartans to provide goalkeeper Helio Meirelles Neto with all the offense he needed as Pedro-Lucas Ferreira fed a perfect pass into the box for Julian Yourawski to fire home.Moments later it nearly was 2-0 but Ralph Bertrand was stoned point blank via a diving save from Gary Polsonetti. The Spartans continued to pour on the pressure but kept coming up empty thanks to stellar saves from Polsonetti and a grazing of two posts.St. Mary’s would get its 2-0 lead with 4:19 left in the half when Jeremy Tranfaglia lifted a free kick from the 45 into the box for a header from Ferreira that proved to be a big momentum changer.”That free kick goal was awesome and it was a big boost for us,” D’Agostino said. “Jeremy put a great ball into the box and Pedro made a great play flicking it on goal.”The Spartans would strike early in the second half also as Yourawski was tacked in the box resulting in a Mike Russo penalty kick goal that made it 3-0.From there, things went downhill quick for North Shore as Chris Leone made it 4-0 eight minutes later. Two Bulldogs would be thrown out of the game late in the half as the physical play increased dramatically.”I like the way that were playing right now,” D’Agostino said. “When we play the way we can, there aren’t many teams that can beat us.”