LYNN— The St. Mary’s and Bishop Fenwick girls soccer teams always look forward to playing one another as Catholic Central League rivals. Monday night at Manning Field it was Fenwick that came ready to play, grabbing a 4-0 shutout win over St. Mary’s to complete the season sweep over the Spartans.
Fenwick featured four different goal scorers as Madison Csogi, Grace Foley, Mia Tsaparlis and Finola Corcoran each scored once. Despite the solid offensive effort, Crusaders coach Steve Flaherty chalked the win up to his defense.
“I think our defense did a really good job,” Flaherty said. “We knew what we were going to get from St. Mary’s. They always play us very strong, they’re a very good club. My two center-backs, Jenna Durkin and Samantha Tache, did a really good job back there. They anchored our defense. Freshman McKenna Gilligan had an outstanding game.”
After a little over 13 minutes of scoreless play, the Crusaders struck through with the game’s first goal. Csogi, a junior, found herself at the right place at the right time when she picked up a loose ball after a dropped corner kick and booted it past Spartans goalie Eliza Brown for the 1-0 Fenwick lead with 26:15 remaining in the first half.
And it didn’t take long for the Crusaders to add to their lead. Foley, a senior, sent a picture-perfect shot from 23 yards into the back of the net to bump Fenwick’s edge to 2-0 with 19:17 on the clock.
“When you don’t do what you’re supposed to do against a team like Fenwick, they do what they did to us tonight,” St. Mary’s coach Jim Foley said. “They beat us in all aspects to be honest. They’re a good team. When you play them, you have to be ready to go and for some reason we weren’t ready to go tonight.”
As Fenwick built its lead, the Spartans struggled to push the ball to the Crusaders’ end of the field. St. Mary’s trailed 2-0 at halftime.
The St. Mary’s offensive struggles carried over into the second half as the trailing Spartans couldn’t string together a quality shot until the waning minutes of the period.
“Fenwick’s defense was able to shut us down and we just couldn’t connect stuff,” Foley said. “We had trouble. Grace (Foley) is a great player, she kind of controlled the middle of the field. It wasn’t just her but we couldn’t get our offense going. That’s kind of been the problem when we play Fenwick.”
Things worsened for the Spartans when Tsaparlis bumped Fenwick’s lead. Tsaparlis, a sophomore, put the game away on her goal with 8:15 remaining in the contest. Susannah Cornell aimed to get the Spartans on the board but her shot with 3:15 to play sailed high over the crossbar, and Morgan Mackey’s shot in the closing seconds was a close miss. Senior Corcoran sealed the scoring with Fenwick’s final goal of the night for the 4-0 shutout win.
“I keep telling them all the time ‘you need to share.One play can’t win the game for you,'” Flaherty said. “Usually the end result is we come out with the win. It was a good game overall. Us and St. Mary’s play each other well every time. That’s a good club.”
St. Mary’s (5-3-1) visits Matignon Wednesday afternoon (3) in Cambridge. The Crusaders (7-1-1) host Spellman Wednesday (4) at Donaldson Stadium.
“We’ll go back to work,” Foley said. “We’re a good team, we’ll shake it off. We’re back Wednesday and we have another game Friday so we have to keep going.”
