St. John’s Prep’s tourney ride ends

LYNN – With two almost evenly matched teams battling in the Division 1 EMass boys soccer final on Tuesday at Manning Field, it came down to a little mistake that proved to be costly for St. John’s Prep.Needham was able to convert a throw-in midway through the first half as Paul Kondratyev scored with 15:49 left. The Rockets made that lone goal stand up the rest of the way as they upended the Eagles, 1-0, to reach the Division 1 state final for the second time in three seasons.?The frustrating thing is that we gave up what was a bad goal,” Prep coach Dave Crowell said. “We knew that it was going to come down to things like those set pieces and we didn’t mark up there. That’s the tough part.”The Rockets, who haven’t been defeated since losing in the South sectional final last season, were playing with plenty of added emotion as long-time coach Don Brock is still recovering from an illness that caused him to miss the South final and last night’s game.?They definitely were playing for him,” Needham assistant coach Jay Steeves said. “And that was a good St. John’s Prep team. They played really hard and are well-coached.”A stiff breeze began blowing just before kickoff with Needham deciding to take the wind at its back for the first half. It was the Eagles who had the first good chance but Brendan Beuchert’s direct kick in the fifth minute was stopped by Needham’s Alex Raskind.The Rockets began to get their high-powered offense going as they tried to work the ball onto the foot of Colgate-bound midfielder Aram Ouligian. The move nearly worked in the 13th minute but Beuchert made a great break up on a pass that would have had Ouligian in alone on keeper Zach Rowell.The Eagles were able to keep Needham far away from the Prep goal for most of the first half despite having the wind in their favor. Unfortunately for St. John’s, the one shot that Needham got on goal would be a big one.On a throw in from the right sideline, Kondratyev was able to beat his defender to the back post and get off a quick shot past Rowell to give the Rockets a 1-0 lead.The Eagles continued to generate some solid offense and nearly tied the game in the final moments of the half but Matt Gianetta was absolutely robbed on a point-blank chance by Raskind to keep it 1-0 at the half.?We really thought that one was going in,” Crowell said. “That would have been huge. We had a couple of other good chances and couldn’t finish them.”Fortunately for the Eagles, they would have the wind as a help in the second half. Problem was that Needham’s outstanding defense was up to the task of shutting St. John’s down.The Rockets were able to win most of the 50-50 balls in the second half, aided by moving Ouligian back on defense to try to hold onto the lead. St. John’s got just two shots on Raskind in the final 40 minutes.Needham was held to just one shot on goal, and two total in the game, but was able to keep the Eagles at bay despite the Prep sending 10 and 11 players towards the goal in the final minutes.?We didn’t do a real good job of creating a lot of chances for ourselves,” Crowell said. “And we didn’t get a lot of them on the frame when we did have the chance.”