LYNN — The St. Mary’s girls soccer team got off to a fast start and never looked back in a 4-0 win over Classical in the Lynn City Tournament at Manning Field Tuesday night.
Kayla Demers drove the offense for the Spartans by scoring two goals and adding a pair of assists. Gabriella Diaz also scored twice, the first coming just 20 seconds into the game, and St. Mary’s defense had a perfect night in the shutout win.
“The kicker is, once you get off to a good start like that the other team gets a little rattled and we can get our game going,” St. Mary’s coach Jim Foley said. “We used our speed which is really what we have up top. Our defense, they didn’t even let up a shot. Abigail Constine, Morgan Mackey, Allie Fritz they all had great games in the back.”
The effort was there for a young Rams team but they were overwhelmed by the more experienced Spartans.
“I don’t think (the early goal) affected us too much,” Classical coach Mike Schena said. “I think it was just the jitters showing after finally getting out there. This is a young team and St. Mary’s is a well-coached team. It’s a well-oiled machine when you’re looking at them and we got outplayed. My girls played with heart but it wasn’t enough.”
It didn’t take long for St. Mary’s to find holes in Classical’s defense. Demers used her speed to set up a scoring chance and sent a pass out front that Diaz finished to give the Spartans an early 1-0 lead.
Classical struggled to get any kind of offense working but settled down on defense after the quick goal.
The Spartans added their second goal just over 20 minutes later. Susannah Cornell fed a perfect pass through the middle to Demers and she did the rest, finding the back of the net to stretch the lead to 2-0.
With four minutes remaining in the half Demers broke away from the defense again and dished a nice pass over to a wide open Diaz out front who scored to give the Spartans a 3-0 lead before the break.
St. Mary’s kept the pressure on with another quick goal in the second half. Cornell fed Demers once again and she scored to stretch the lead to 4-0 with 31:16 to play.
That was more than enough cushion for the Spartans, who cycled in some younger players while their defense stayed strong to close out the night.
“We were able to make all our subs,” Foley said. “We got some younger kids, a seventh-grader in there at the end so that’s nice. We got to mix and match. We settled down and played our game tonight.”
Schena hopes that the Rams can learn from a tough matchup in their opener going forward.
“We’re going to face these type of teams all year long,” Schena said. “We have to be prepared at all times and be emotionally ready and physically ready. I think it was a good first game to have against a great team. We’ll build off of it.”
Classical will take on Tech in the consolation game Saturday (9) while St. Mary’s moves on to the championship game against English (1).