DANVERS — The preliminaries are over for St. John’s Prep. Now comes the iron.
The Eagles completed the first part of their schedule Friday night at Glatz Field with a resounding bang: a 42-0 win over Westford Academy. The Prep started slowly, but gathered momentum as the game wore on, especially on defense, where the front line was a wrecking crew.
Now, come two Catholic Conference games in a row. Next Saturday (3) St. John’s travels to Catholic Memorial, where coach Brian St. Pierre will match wits with John DiBiaso, who tortured The Prep annually while at Everett High. The following week, it’s Boston College High School.
Friday, the Grey Ghosts were already down to the backup quarterback, Nicholas Faretra, and by the time the game was over, they had to to trot out Alexander Quatterocchi, who sported a very un-quarterback-like No. 89.
“We really got after (Faretra),” said St. Pierre. “He’s the best athlete they have. He stood in there and took some pretty good hits.”
In all the defense, spearheaded by noseguard James Taylor, sacked Faretra six times for 36 yards. Meanwhile, once the Eagles got some early-game kinks out of the way, they rolled. Aise Pream scored three touchdowns and ran for 87 yards. And that’s even with Westford lining up with eight in the box to stop the run.
“We can go either way,” St. Pierre said, regarding whether his team runs or throws the ball better. “They sold out on the run, and we had trouble with it early.”
So, that gave sophomore quarterback Matt Crowley a chance to strut his stuff, and it gave Marblehead’s Wes Rockett a chance to get untracked. Rockett, a senior who missed all of last season with a knee injury, caught five passes for 93 yards.
“I was glad to get him going,” said St. Pierre.
About the only thing that didn’t go right for St. John’s is that when St. Pierre put the second unit into the game so they could get some reps, James Guy Jr. of Lynn rumbled 51 yards for a touchdown.
“How do you like that?” St. Pierre joked. “I put the second unit in there and we can’t keep the ball because Guy scores a touchdown. Good for him. I’m happy for him.”
After taking a couple of series of downs to get going, Pream scored the first of his trio of touchdowns with 1:40 left in the first quarter, breaking through for a 60-yard run up the middle. After forcing Westford to a quick three-and-out, St. John’s blocked the punt and got the ball back on the Grey Ghosts’ 18. It only took one play for Crowley to find Rockett in the end zone for the first of their two touchdown connections. They struck again with 5:52 with a 13-yard scoring pass.
As if that wasn’t bad enough for the Grey Ghosts, on their first play after the touchdown, Pream picked one off and ran it back 25 yards to make the score 28-0, which is where it stayed until the half.
With six minutes to go in the third quarter, Pream ran one in from the 6-yard line only to have the run called back due to holding. On the next play, he ran it in from the 16 and it was 35-0, and before the quarter ended, Guy took off from midfield to score The Prep’s final touchdown.