In the first game of a tripleheader at Manning Field, St. Mary’s defeated Arlington Catholic, 4-2, on Wednesday. The score is no indication of the complete control that St.Mary’s had in the game.Seventy-five percent of the game was played in the Cougars’ end.St. Mary’s came into the game with a record of 3-1-3 (1-1-1 CCL). Arlington Catholic has a record of 1-5 (0-3 CCL).St. Mary’s coach Al Jackson did not want his players to get overconfident. He said, “They are a tough bunch of kids. They have their motors running the whole game.”The game was only five minutes old when the Spartans put the first goal on the board. Alex Glover put a through ball down the right side of the area to Corey Simone, who broke in free on the keeper. As the keeper started off his line to play the striker, Simone let the shot go. The keeper was frozen on his first step by the shot and it beat him easily to the left corner. The Spartans led 1-0.Ten minutes later, at the 15-minute mark, Glover received the same kind of through ball from Shaun Borders and hammered a shot low left that the keeper, Alex Banzy, had no play on. This made the score St Mary’s 2, Arlington Catholic 0. For the next 20 minutes, the ball never came out of the AC end. The Spartan defenders kept pumping every clearing pass back into the Cougar area.In the 37th minute, Glover picked up his second goal of the half to go along with an assist.Eric Donaghy fed Glover going down the right wing. He veered into the area and put a shot over the keeper’s head to boost the score to 3-0. The half ended with St Mary’s ahead 3-0. The Spartans had put 16 shots on net in the first half.The second half started with the Spartans applying the same pressure on the AC midfielders, and they were having great difficulty getting the ball over midfield. Finally, at the 59-minute mark, a Cougar midfielder lofted a long shot at the St. Mary’s net that Spartan sweeper Chris Kefalas headed past his own keeper, Andrew Lamacchia, for an “own goal.” This made the score Spartans 3, Cougars 1. The whole tenor of the game now changed. Three minutes later, at the 53rd minute, AC had a dead ball kick from 35 yards out from the Spartan net. St Mary’s set up a wall. AC junior midfielder Jeff White blasted the ball through the wall, and the ball hit a player on the way to the goal; it changed direction and nestled in the low left corner of the Spartan net past a startled Lamacchia.Arlington Catholic was all fired up and took the play to the Spartans, but at the 65-minute mark, St. Mary’s ended the comeback with a goal by Donaghy, assisted by Simone. Donaghy picked up the pass from Simone and fired from just inside the arc and beat the keeper high in the middle over his head. The last 15 minutes were played mainly at midfield, and the game ended with St. Mary’s winning 4-2.AC coach Lenny Giesta said, “I am happy with the comeback that we made in the second half. We now have to put two good halves together.”Jackson said, “We are a young team and we are getting better each game. We just can’t put the ball in the net.”St Mary’s scored 4 goals on 28 shots on net. The Spartans’ record now goes to 4-1-3 (2-1-1 CCL). Their next game is Friday in Braintree against Archbishop Williams.