LYNN — Despite a shaky first half the No. 2 St. Mary’s boys soccer team was able to put everything together to win the Division 4 North title, 2-1, against No. 1 Mystic Valley Sunday afternoon at Manning Field.
“It’s great,” St. Mary’s coach Mike D’Agostino said. “We started off a little bit slow but we definitely, I think, outshot them and had pressure on them. It was a lucky bounce but they got a great goal in that first half.”
Senior captain Joseph Thongsythavong scored both goals for the Spartans after being moved up to forward in the second half.
“We kept the pressure of them all game,” D’Agostino said. “We had our opportunities with Olushola George, Nolan Perez and Joseph taking some great shots. We had to fine tune some things at half time. We made some changes, we we moved Joey up front and he got two beautiful goals. He’s an all-New England player and it is well deserved, MVP of the game today.”
The Spartans defense, with Matt Gallego, in net stepped up and held strong in the second half.
“Matt played great in net for us,” D’Agostino said. “He definitely made some great saves when needed. Our defense played solid. I always give credit to the back line and Connor Mackey played well on defense.”
The Spartans saw an early chance when George beat a defender and slipped a slow shot by the Mystic Valley goalkeeper. However, the shot rolled wide of the left post to keep the game scoreless.
Less than three minutes later a bad bounce put the Spartans behind. A shot bounced off a St. Mary’s defender and found the back of the net for a goal to put the Eagles ahead 1-0 before the half.
“We came right out of the locker room and one of the things we were focused on was winning balls out of the air and we did that,” D’Agostino said. “The second thing was getting shots on net. The first half we had a lot of shots over the net and we adjusted well.”
It didn’t take long for St. Mary’s to tie the game in the second half. Richard LeBrun sent a nice corner kick in front of the Eagles’ net and Thongsythavong finished the play with a header goal to tie the game at 1-1.
A few minutes later a loose ball slipped by the Mystic Valley goalkeeper. Thongsythavong won the race to the loose ball and scored on the empty net to put the Spartans ahead 2-1.
With minutes to play the Eagles brought pressure in a late effort to tie the game but the Spartans defense held strong to seal the 2-1 victory.
St. Mary’s will play in the Division 4 state semifinal game Wednesday (7) at Marshfield High School against the winner of the South championship game between Cohasset and Carver.
“We are just trying to stay healthy,” D’Agostino said. “Whether we play Cohasset or Carver they’re two great teams down the South. We are trying to get everyone healthy and work hard at practice in the next two days, from there we will see what happens.”
