LYNN — The undefeated season just keeps rolling on for the St. John’s Prep boys soccer team, as the No. 1 Eagles took down No. 13 Framingham, 3-1, in the Division 1 North semifinals at Manning Field on Tuesday night. While the game was in hand at the time, the game was stopped with just over four minutes remaining when Framingham earned its fourth yellow card, technically resulting in a forfeiture of the match.
“It was certainly a strange ending,” said St. John’s coach Dave Crowell. “I wish [Framingham] had played the game a little cleaner, but it was a great battle for the whole game and they played their hearts out. It was a great matchup.”
It was a back-and-forth game for the first 20 minutes of the game, with both teams getting decent scoring chances during that span.
The Prep started gaining a foothold with about 20 minutes left in the first half. Around that time, the Eagles got three quality scoring chances in a row, including two corners. Then, on yet another corner with 17:23 on the clock, senior captain Brian Brennan sent a great pass to senior captain Mitch Collins, who put the ball on his right foot and fired a shot from about 25 yards out that bent just inside the right post for the goal.
The Flyers started to put some pressure on in the final 10 minutes of the half, but Prep senior goalkeeper Cam Buckley came up with some big saves to hold on to the 1-0 lead at the half.
“I thought we were really playing well and didn’t need to make any real adjustments at halftime,” Crowell said. “We were playing on our front foot pretty much the whole time, and when we play like that we can get rolling.”
The Eagles got things going much quicker in the second half. Just over 10 minutes in, St. John’s earned a corner. It was Brennan who stepped in to take the kick in the left corner, and he was able to bend his kick right inside the far post to make it a 2-0 game.
Framingham found some life with 12:43 left in the game when senior captain Nick Bernardi was taken down in the box and awarded a penalty kick. He buried it in the right corner of the net to make it 2-1, then the Flyers stayed on the attack.
But they got a bit too aggressive, and that eventually led to a yellow card and a free kick just outside the box for St. John’s. This time, it was senior Steven Yakita who took the kick, and he bent it around three Framingham defenders and into the top-left corner of the net to get the goal right back and seal the win for the Eagles at 3-1.
“We had three goals on three set pieces today, two corners and the free kick, and that’s huge for us,” said Crowell. “We spend a lot of time working on that stuff, and it paid dividends tonight.”
It’s now on to the Division 1 North Final, where the Eagles (18-0-3) will take on either No. 2 Somerville or No. 14 Brookline. That semifinal game will be played today at 5 p.m. in Lowell, while the title game will be on Saturday at 11 a.m. back at Manning Field.
