ARLINGTON ― The Bishop Fenwick Crusaders boys soccer team didn’t wait long to score, and they defeated the Arlington Catholic Cougars 2-0 on Monday afternoon.
While Bishop Fenwick head coach Julius Pertillar said that his squad needed to work on some areas of its game, he was happy to get the win.
“They performed well,” he said. “We just have to focus on finishing. We defended well. We possessed the ball well. The boys had a really good game considering we are coming off a big loss versus Masconomet and they stepped up to the challenge.”
The Crusaders got on the attack early with senior Ryan Morgenstern rifling a shot on net in the first five minutes of the match. Two minutes later, senior captain Ryan Noci notched the first goal of the game with a beautifully-curled shot into the right corner of the net.
The beautiful strikes would continue as senior captain Keiron Murray sent his own long-range missile into the back of the net in the 20th minute to give the Crusaders a 2-0 lead.
Senior goalkeeper Charlie Vu had a comfortable first half as the combination of winning the possession battle along with a strong performance from the Bishop Fenwick back line meant that he didn’t have to deal with a lot of pressure.
Arlington Catholic would get their first opportunity in the final third with a free kick close to the box with less than 15 minutes to go in the first half, but Alex Hananian skied the shot over the crossbar.
The second half wasn’t as pleasing for the Crusaders. For the first 10 minutes, Bishop Fenwick was on the back foot as it struggled to get into the final third. The Cougars’ back line learned their lesson after a difficult first half.
Still, Pertillar was impressed with how his side played for the entire 80 minutes and even took some of the blame for the team’s finishing struggles.
“Actually, in the second half we had a lot of opportunities,” said the coach. ” We just have to finish them. I just have to do a better job in training and doing some more stuff in front of the goal. I’ve been working a lot on the build-ups and playing through the midfield, now I got to work harder on the team with finishing.”
In the second half, Arlington Catholic got some great goaltending from Jake Abreau. This included an impressive save just over an hour into gameplay and a kick save in stoppage time.
Bishop Fenwick is now 3-4-4 this season and faces Peabody at home on Thursday (3:30).
