Spartans ready for battle
St. Mary’s proves worth
While St. Mary’s compiled wins during the first half of the season, the Spartans simultaneously kept an eye on early October.
That’s when the Spartans’ schedule turned drastically tough with matchups against Lincoln-Sudbury and St. John’s Prep within a week.
Both contests served as a proving ground that St. Mary’s, a Division 4 school, could hang with the Div. 1 powers, and the Spartans responded with a 1-0 win over L-S and a 2-2 tie against the Prep.
And while St. Mary’s went on to claim a third straight Catholic Central League title, it was those points coming against the state’s elite that fortified another sensational season.
“It’s one of the hardest schedules I’ve done, and we’ve done a great job this year competing and contending with those teams and giving them a challenge,” said St. Mary’s coach Mike D’Agostino. “Personally, they may think they’d walk right over us as a small little school coming in, but I think we gave them a little shocker.”
While St. Mary’s (12-1-2) is riding a 14-game unbeaten streak, the season didn’t get off to a glowing start. After a historic 2017 campaign in which the Spartans didn’t drop a single regular season game, St. Mary’s opened this year with a 2-1 defeat against Lynn Tech.
“Losing to Lynn Tech was a wake-up call and a well-needed one,” said senior captain and center midfielder Joey Thongsythavong. “It gave us that mindset that we could be the best, but if we don’t play our best, then we’re not going to go anywhere. We fell to them
and everyone took it to heart.”
St. Mary’s regrouped in convincing fashion with an offensive assault on the opposition. Led by Thongsythavong (11 goals, 15 assists), the Spartans have notched 62 goals, including at least five tallies in eight games.
Thongsythavong’s lone goal and the goaltending of Nick Pappas buoyed the Spartans against L-S, while Kevin Perez and Olu George (14 goals) secured tallies against the Prep. Nolan Perez is also an instrumental piece of St. Mary’s dynamic offense.
United Minutemen
For Lexington (13-1-1), its success is rooted in a strong team approach that has the Minutemen as a top contender in Div.1.
“The biggest strength is that we’re a unit,” said Lexington coach Keith Beaty. “We’re a pack. We do everything together. We fight for one another.”
While the spotlight is fixated on senior striker Sancho Maroto, there is much more to the Minutemen. Maroto’s fellow senior captains, Jaeho Chung and Knut Lundstrom, play vital roles in the midfield and goalie Karl Vernet, a Waltham transfer, anchors a strong defense.
Lexington secured at least a share of the Middlesex Liberty title after a 3-2 win over Arlington Thursday, but Beaty believes there is still another level the Minutemen can reach.
“We’re still not even clicking on all cylinders like we want to be,” Beaty said. “We want to be able to say in the middle of the playoffs, that’s when it clicks and we play a full game to the best that we can.”
Dempsey, Wildcats strike
The keys to Weymouth’s offense switched hands this season with senior center midfielder Emma Lynch giving way to junior striker Drew Dempsey.
While Lynch is still an integral part of Weymouth’s success, Dempsey’s production has been nearly impossible to match. Dempsey has scored 21 goals, more than half the Wildcats’ total.
“(Lynch) drove the offense the last couple of years, but with Drew’s maturation process, it has helped us immensely,” said Weymouth coach John MacIntyre. “We’re at the point now where she’s scored enough goals that, when teams come to play us, they have to game plan to take care of two or three people rather than just one.”
Dempsey and freshman Riley Grable each scored in a 2-0 win over perennial Div.1 South juggernaut Whitman-Hanson on Oct. 5. Weymouth hopes results like that come in the tournament, where the Wildcats haven’t won a postseason game in four years and haven’t made it past the first round since 2010.
“I’m confident that we can step on a field and play with anybody,” MacIntyre said.
‘Losing to Lynn Tech was a wake-up call and a well needed one. . . . If we don’t play our best, then we’re not going to go anywhere.’ — JOEY THONGSYTHAVONG, St. Mary’s senior captain