It may not have the same type of significance outside of Danvers and Westwood this year, but the annual St. John’s Prep/Xaverian game is always an Event, with a capital “E.”For the first time since 2000, neither the Eagles (5-5; 2-1) nor the Hawks (5-5; 1-2) will represent the Catholic Conference in the post-season. Boston College High (10-0; 4-0) wrapped up the league title the weekend before last by beating the Prep, 24-0.St. John’s can win a share of the title if it beats Xaverian on Thanksgiving Day (10:15 a.m.; Cronin Field) and Catholic Memorial knocks off B.C. High, but the Eagles from Dorchester will still advance to the Division 1 playoffs since the first tiebreaker is head-to-head results.”Winning a share of the title is a nice thing to think about, but no, we don’t worry too much about things we can’t control between C.M. and B.C. High,” St. John’s Prep coach Jim O’Leary said. “We’ll be just like the majority of the schools in the state, playing for pride against their rival on Thanksgiving Day. Our kids love the game, and for our seniors it will be their final game at St. John’s Prep, so it’s going to be special.”Despite being the cornerstones of one of the fiercest rivalries in the Eastern Mass. football, O’Leary and his counterpart from Xaverian, Charlie Stevenson, have always been on good terms with each other. And it shows up in the way the game is played on the field.There’s no dirty play, no extra rough stuff on the bottom of the pile ? just good, quality football for four quarters.”The people in our program have always had so much respect for their program, and vice versa,” Stevenson said. “It doesn’t matter that both teams are 5-5 this year. We don’t even think about that. It’s a big game for our kids, a big game for their kids, and the team that makes the most plays will win.”Beyond the records, it’s hard to get a read on how the game itself will play out. The Prep lost by just five points to Brockton, which blew out Xaverian by four touchdowns, and the Eagles crushed Malden Catholic, which upset the Hawks in the opening week of the season.However, Xaverian blasted St. John’s of Shrewsbury, which only lost to the Prep by nine points. Both teams lost to Everett, but Xaverian lost by 13 points on the road.”I don’t think you can tell a lot by just looking at the final scores,” O’Leary said. “We dropped a touchdown pass at the end of the first half that would have put us down 14-7, but we don’t make the play and then they come out and score early in the second half and it’s a whole different ballgame.”And they played a lot better against Brockton than that (42-14) score indicates,” O’Leary added. “And all that stuff gets thrown out the window on Thanksgiving Day anyway.””MC (Malden Catholic) beat us, and they humiliated MC,” Stevenson said. “But we played them early in the season and they didn’t play them until last week. Maybe that made a difference, or maybe they matched up better against MC than we did. It’s hard to say. But once we get out there on Thursday, I don’t think what’s happened in the past against other teams is going to go through the minds of the players.”Xaverian holds a 21-18 advantage in the head-to-head rivalry, and won last year’s game by a convincing score of 34-0 at Westwood. Prep players have provided some of the most memorable moments, at least recently, however. There was the 43-yard touchdown run by Brian St. Pierre (now of the Pittsburgh Steelers) that won the game in 1997, Dan Ross’s 54-yard touchdown pass to Lonnie Hill, who caught the ball between three Xaverian defenders on the last play of the 2001 game, and Andrew Long’s blocked field goal to preserve a 22-21 Prep win in 2003.”Tradition is certainly a harder thing for us to place than some of the other schools in the state that have been playing each other for more than 100 years, but we’ve certainly had some memorable games with St. John’s Prep,” Stevenson said. “They certainly have a much longer school tradition than we do,