DORCHESTER — So far, so good for St. Mary’s football coach Sean Driscoll in his first season with the Spartans. Saturday afternoon’s 39-22 win over South Boston at White Stadium puts the Spartans at 2-0. But while the end result was a positive, the negative was that St. Mary’s committed a plethora of penalties. South Boston couldn’t take advantage of them but Driscoll said he’d like to see his team clean up the miscues moving forward.
“We got out of here with a win,” Driscoll said. “It was probably one of the longer games I ever coached in, it seemed like we were on NFL time. We came out, did some good things early and then got lackadaisical a little bit. It’s just one of those things, playing Saturday at noon takes some time getting used to but we did some good things.
“The good news is I got a lot of guys a lot of time today. Unfortunately we have stuff to work on. We have to get mentally tough when things get a little hard. That’s a good team in the (Boston) City League. They’ll win some games but we could’ve played better.”
Spartans quarterback Derek O’Leary was 4-of-5 through the air for 82 yards, and threw a touchdown pass to receiver Brendan Laundry. O’Leary also ran for a score. Laundry caught two passes for 53 yards. Patrick Henry and Mark Niboh logged one reception apiece.
George Freeman led the run-heavy St. Mary’s offense. Freeman finished with 95 yards on 12 carries and scored a touchdown. The Spartans featured eight different ball carriers in the victory, with Zach Barden and George Percy scoring a touchdown each.
Daniel Austin accounted for all three South Boston scores. Austin returned a kick 72 yards for a touchdown in the second quarter and scored twice in the fourth quarter on a pair of carries.
Things started well for the Knights in the opening period when Carlos Robles forced a St. Mary’s fumble on the game’s first drive. But the Spartans regained possession and scored on Freeman’s 3-yard run with 6:22 on the clock (Barden conversion).
Austin returned the ensuing kickoff to the end zone to make it a 2-point game at 8-6. Barden’s 28-yard touchdown rush gave the Spartans a 16-6 lead (Barden conversion) at the end of the first quarter.
Laundry reeled in a 43-yard touchdown pass from O’Leary to boost the lead to 24-6 (Barden conversion) on the opening drive of the second quarter. The Spartans added a safety and a 2-yard touchdown on O’Leary’s quarterback keeper to carry a 32-6 lead (conversion failed) at halftime.
After a scoreless third quarter, St. Mary’s stopped a South Boston fake punt short on fourth-and-long, setting the stage for freshman running back Percy to score on a 23-yard run with 8:39 remaining in the game (Freeman PAT). Refusing to quit, South Boston closed the gap to 17 points on back-to-back touchdown runs from Austin of 27 and 35 yards, respectively. Austin and Tony Depina were successful on the 2-point conversions for the 39-22 final.
“Those kids playing in our second group were eighth and ninth graders for the most part,” Driscoll said. “I’m proud of them for sticking their heads in there against South Boston’s first group.”
The Spartans host Catholic Memorial for a big test next Friday evening (5) at Manning Field.
“I watched them play (last) Friday night,” Driscoll said of Catholic Memorial. “They’re very fast. They’re very good on defense. They get to the ball as well as any team I’ve seen. They beat a good Stoughton team (last) Friday night. We just have to worry about ourselves. If we worry about ourselves and nothing else, and we take care of business, we’ll be pretty good.
“Hopefully we get better. Hopefully we learn from our mistakes today and get ready to go for next week.”
