The St. Mary’s boys soccer team put together possibly its best game of the season Monday afternoon in its regular season finale, but unfortunately the effort didn’t get the Spartans over the hump in a 2-0 loss to new Catholic Central League foe Bishop Feehan in Attleboro.
“This was our best game of the season, no matter what the scoreboard ended up saying,” said St. Mary’s coach Mike D’Agostino. “It’s obviously tough for the guys to take the loss because they know how hard and well they played out there, but this is definitely a way for us to build up some positive momentum as we go into the league tournament.”
The Spartans got strong play across the board Monday, with particularly strong games coming from Richie LeBrun, Ryan Fraher, Michael Anderson, Dylan Moroney, Jackson Nickolau and goalkeeper Jacob Guarino.
“There were so many great performances out there, it would be hard to single out any one player for how well they played,” said D’Agostino.
The game was knotted at 0-0 most of the way, but — as has been typical this season for the Spartans — a few mistakes in their own end led to a pair of goals that St. Mary’s couldn’t come back from. The first one came with about five minutes left in the third quarter, while the other came in the fourth after D’Agostino sent all his players into the offensive zone to try and force the tying goal. Both resulted in Feehan goals.
“Just like it’s been all season, we were done in by a couple of mistakes in our own end,” said D’Agostino. “The last goal was my fault because I sent everyone up the field, but despite that I thought we still played well overall.”
D’Agostino saw plenty of positives in Monday night’s game.
“We had a ton of chances at the net, but we just couldn’t find a way to get one in,” said D’Agostino. “Feehan’s goalkeeper was outstanding (Monday) and he stopped everything we sent at him.”
St. Mary’s finishes the regular season at 5-9-1 and now awaits its seeding in the upcoming CCL Cup, which will begin Saturday.
“We’ve been learning from our mistakes,” said D’Agostino. “We feel like we’re really starting to get into a groove and we’re playing some really solid soccer. We’re just hoping that we can take some of this momentum and push it forward into the CCL Cup. All the records go out the door once Saturday hits, so we’re going to just go out and see what we can do.”
