DANVERS — The St. John’s Prep football team did the only thing it could do Friday night. It clobbered Lowell, 42-13, in a Division 1 North football quarterfinal game at Fred Glatz Field.
No muss. No fuss. No fanfare. The Eagles, 7-1, just came out and took care of business from the start, methodically zipping up and down the field while keeping Lowell on its own side of the field until the final drive of the second quarter, by which time they’d already started subbing.
“We wanted to get off to a fast start,” said Eagles coach Brian St Pierre. “And we did. Mission accomplished.”
No. 2 St. John’s will play either No. 3 Andover or No. 6 Methuen in the semifinal round at home next week (TBA). Those two teams were scheduled for today at 2:15 in Andover.
Matt Duchemin gave the Red Raiders a good indication of how things were going to go right from the get-go, taking the opening kick and running it down to the Lowell 36. It took James Guy Jr. one play to find the holes and rush the 36 yards for the score. With Liam Fabbri hitting the first of his six PATs, the score was 7-0 less than a minute in.
It was the beginning of a fruitful night for Guy — who was the only Eagle to really amass any gaudy stats, as Matt Crowley had to do little more than take the snaps and give Guy the ball. He ended up with 133 yards on 14 carries, and scored two touchdowns.
“He’s healthy for the first time since the Central Catholic game (in Week 3),” St. Pierre said.
After a quarter it was 28-0. Crowley found Jackson Delaney in the end zone from 25 yards out with 5:35 to go in the quarter and it was 14-0. Guy plowed his way in again from the 1-yard-line with 3:49 to go to make the score 21-0, and Pat Nistl scored at the end of the quarter.
In the second quarter, Nistl went in on a 5-yard run to make the score 35-0, amd after a spectacular run by Matt Mitchell, who picked off a Brendan Tighe pass from is own 30 an ran it back the Lowell 3, fullback Nick Masterson plowed in from the one for The Prep’s final score.
Lowell scored twice, once on a Aidan Finn-to-Jakob Rivers pass, and again on a throw from Tighe to Kyle Shanahan.
The Eagles honored their seniors Friday night with a brief pregame ceremony.
