MALDEN — The St. Mary’s girls soccer team earned a much-needed win Friday afternoon, knocking off Malden Catholic 4-0 in a non-conference bout on the road. The win comes following a period of inconsistency for the Spartans, so head coach Jim Foley was happy to see what transpired Friday.
“It was a great win for us and I think we really needed a win like that,” said Foley. “We’ve gone through a bit of a tough stretch recently with some poor play, but the girls came out tonight, played hard and pulled out a great win.”
Eighth grader Bre Moloney had one goal and one assist in the win for St. Mary’s, while senior captain Susannah Cornell, senior captain Julia Nickolau and seventh grader Sophie Skabeikis each scored one goal. Senior captain goalkeeper Eliza Brown notched the shutout in net.
“It was nice to see the younger girls score tonight and get involved in the game,” said Foley. “I think our struggles early this season have come from just settling into things and getting accustomed to playing together out there. We have a decent number of younger players out there, so it’s going to take some time for them to get comfortable with the speed of the game.”
Things got off to a slow start on both sides Friday, with the two teams battling to a scoreless tie through one quarter of play. Seven minutes then went by in the second quarter before the Spartans finally broke the stalemate. It was Moloney who broke the tie, scoring with 13 minutes to play in the first half to put the Spartans up 1-0. Just five minutes later, Cornell found the back of the net to give St. Mary’s a 2-0 lead at halftime.
Nickolau put the Spartans up 3-0 late in the third quarter before Skabeikis rounded out the scoring in the fourth.
The win puts the Spartans at 3-3-1 on the season, with a crucial week of conference games now on the horizon. In addition to games against Arlington Catholic and St. Joseph’s Prep this coming week, St. Mary’s will clash with perennial rival Bishop Fenwick on the road at Donaldson Stadium Monday.
“We’ve got a big week ahead of us in terms of the Catholic Central League, so we want to be playing our best soccer as we head into this stretch,” said Foley. “I think we’re trending in the right direction, but we’ve got to keep up this pace now.”
Foley hopes that the Spartans can continue to build off the positive momentum they’ve begun to gain and take that into the second half of the season.
“I think the real key will simply be building off of what we’ve done to this point and then taking it to the next level,” said Foley. “Even in our losses this year, we’ve done a lot of good things. We just have to keep working and try to keep this momentum going through the rest of the year.”
St. Mary’s will play on the road at Bishop Fenwick Monday afternoon (4).
