FILE PHOTO
Alec Matho scored three goals Saturday in St. Mary’s boys lacrosse win over the Lynn Jets.
By STEVE KRAUSE
LYNN — Lynn Jets boys lacrosse coach Peter Pappagianopoulos said that Saturday’s 14-1 loss to St. Mary’s at Manning Field wasn’t indicative of the disparity between the two teams.
“They’re a very good team,” he said. “But I don’t think they’re 13 goals better than we are. We didn’t play a good game.
“I don’t question the effort,” he said. “Every one of my kids when out there and busted his butt today. But we made some bad decisions and bad plays and that’s what happens.”
Over on the other side of the field, St. Mary’s coach Josh Field was happy for the win. The Spartans, 9-9, have to win one of two road games against Greater Lowell and Essex Tech to make the state tournament.
Not only that, Saturday was senior day for the Spartans.
“I’m happy that all our seniors got to play, and that they played well,” Field said. “This will probably be their last high school game at Manning Field, so it was good that they came out of it with a win.”
The Spartans got the scoring started with 7:59 to go in the first quarter when Dante Maribito put one in from the near side, from about the 25-yard line. Seventeen seconds later, Andrew Kreamer came across the middle and put one in to score St. Mary’s second goal. Ryan Clark made it 2-1 shortly thereafter before Nick Napolitano, Kreamer, Maribito and Alec Matho gave St. Marys ’s a 5-1 lead after a quarter.
Lynn tightened up considerably in the second quarter and the only goal came from Kreamer, which made the score 7-1.
Kreamer led the way with four goals, with Matho scoring three, Maribito and Jared Moriello getting two each, and Napolitano, Anthony DelVecchio and Brendon Donahue (his first) scoring the others.
In the third quarter, St. Mary’s scored five goals, and that was a main source of dissatisfaction for Pappagianopoulos.
“We had an awful third quarter,” he said.
Though Lynn ends its season at 5-11 (the same record as last year), Pappagianopoulos sees much improvement.
“This year we played a much tougher schedule,” he said. “Last year, two of those wins were by forfeit. I’d say we made significant improvement.”