The St. Mary’s boys soccer team was staring at another loss late Friday afternoon, but the Spartans didn’t go down without a fight. Following a quick two-goal outburst in the final minutes, St. Mary’s was able to push past non-conference foe Essex Tech to earn a 4-3 come-from-behind victory. The winning goal came from Ryan Fraher on an assist from Eduardo Toranzo with one minute left in the game.
“It was a thrilling way to close out the game, and it was great to see that we never stopped battling out there,” said St. Mary’s coach Mike D’Agostino. “It was a great comeback win and I think it’s really going to give us some momentum going forward.”
Toranzo led the offensive attack for the Spartans, finishing the game with two goals and one assist, while Fraher had one goal and one assist. Connor Hamel added one goal, while Kaya Jackson had one assist.
The Spartans came out strong and dominated play in the early minutes, but they didn’t have anything to show for it after Essex Tech notched a couple goals to take a 2-0 lead.
“After Essex Tech grabbed those two early goals, our guys got down a little bit,” said D’Agostino. “But they rebounded quickly and started attacking, and that’s when things started to turn for us.”
Toranzo got the rally going, scoring two goals in a row to tie the score at 2-2. Essex Tech ended up getting a goal back, but then Connor Hamel tied the game up in the fourth quarter. Finally, with time running out in the game, Toranzo found Fraher for the game-winning goal to give the Spartans the victory.
St. Mary’s moves to 4-4-1 with the win, and D’Agostino thinks that the momentum from the victory could propel St. Mary’s to a strong finish.
“We just want to take the positives from this and keep pushing forward,” said D’Agostino. “Our guys have really been stepping up lately, and we’re just hoping to keep that going the rest of the season. Our defense and our goalkeeping has been great this year, but now our offense is starting to pick things up.”
St. Mary’s returns to action Saturday (11) for a Senior Day game against St. Joseph’s Prep at Bishop Fenwick’s Donaldson Stadium.
