‘The ones you live for’
Archbishop Spalding upsets St. Mary’s, 8-6
If anyone needed a reminder as to how good the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference playoffs will be, here it is.
Archbishop Spalding, behind St. Mary’s in the standings all season long, welcomed the Saints to their place and sent them packing with an upset loss. With well-executed defense and offense hitting at the right times, the Cavaliers finished their week on the highest note, topping the Saints, 8-6. With just one regular-season game to play, Spalding could stay in the hunt for a No. 2 seed.
Cavaliers goalkeeper Connor McMahon, the son of a St. Mary’s graduate, felt the joy of his brotherhood stream through him as they dog-piled him at the last buzzer. A smile never left his face.
“We always feel like we have this underdog mentality,” McMahon said. “We love to come from under, play our game, come out with energy, and I feel we did that today. Just doing our thing and disrupting others while we do it.”
Spalding’s using that parity as teaching moments. The Cavaliers fell silent in the fourth quarter two weeks ago in a loss to Boys’ Latin. On Thursday, they added two more goals.
“We always say you either win or you learn,” Spalding coach Brian Phipps said. “We learned a lot from that Boys’ Latin game about how to compete, how to finish a game and these MIAA games, you can’t take anything for granted.”
St. Mary’s (14-2, 7-2 MIAA) will also need to use these past two defeats as teaching moments ahead of the biggest game of the year: Severn.
“Tonight’s game and Tuesday’s game are just MIAA games and we got two losses. But we go to bed thinking about Severn every night,” Saints coach Victor Lilly said .“We’ re thinking about them tonight. We’re right onto Severn.”
Like furious storm waves, the two teams battled back and forth for nine chaotic and scoreless minutes. Nerves coursed through both sides.
The moment an attack broke through — Spalding’s Paul Poknis — the Cavaliers settled in.
Goals came rapid fire after that, 20 seconds after Poknis’ goal, Race Ripley scored another for the Cavaliers. Ten seconds later, Nick Golini broke the ice for St. Mary’s.
Where the first quarter was back-and-forth, the second quarter was the exact opposite. Spalding won every faceoff and, defying the limitations of the shot clock through pickups and turnovers, maintained control through a seemingly endless quarter.
But for every goal the Cavaliers added, there were three missed. But as Spalding continued to limit St. Mary’s possessions, it was only natural the Cavaliers would start piling on.
Spalding midfielder Mikey Weisshaar scored one and fed another, lifting Spalding to a 5-3 advantage at halftime.
“Once we started to convert a lot of goals, offense got the defense going, and we just kept rolling, rolling, rolling,” McMahon said. “We just stayed basic, we stayed with our game and just kept going — and it came our way.”
Most of Spalding’s goals came assisted, including every one in the third and fourth quarters. Phipps credits that to the team philosophies.
“Six is always going to win. Six guys on offense, playing together, sharing the ball,” Phipps said. “And our guys lived up to it.”
Of the Saints keeping Spalding’s prolific scorers at bay, few put his entire body into it like Wyatt Cotton. The junior, marked on Weisshaar, physically threw himself into nearly every Spalding shot, including one that had him off the field for injury for much of the third.
But Spalding had a defender working overtime, too. Senior Alex Ross kept guard of Will Hopkins, the catalyst of St. Mary’s offense. And as the Saints needed the kind of clutch shots Hopkins is known for, they just weren’t going to come.
“It was difficult,” Lilly said. “It was hard on [Hopkins] today, and we saw some things we’ve got to improve on for the next push.”
St. Mary’s nearly changed the course of fate. Late in the fourth quarter, junior Jake Kucinski closed the gap to a goal, 7-6. Then, with less than a minute to go, the Saints got possession on an over-pass by Spalding, gunning towards Spalding’s defense and McMahon.
McMahon was ready, raising his stick just in time to make the save. Then, to fully dissipate any hopes St. Mary’s still had, Cavaliers attack Ayden Hammel swung before the Saints’ net and scored.
“These kinds of games,” Phipps said. “These are the ones you live for.”
ARCHBISHOP SPALDING — 2-3-6-2 — 8
ST. MARY’S — 1-2-2-1 — 6 GOALS: A: Ryan Schrier2;M ikey
Weisshaar 1; Paul Poknis 1; Ayden Hammel 1; Race Ripley 1; Nick Gutierrez 1. S: Jake Adams 2; Nick Golini 2; Jake Kucinski 1; Erik Chick 1