LYNN — The wind was whipping audibly across Manning Field Monday Lynn, where the temperatures felt like 24 degrees. But it was all sunshine and smiles as far as the top seeded St. John’s Prep soccer team was concerned.
Going into that biting gale in the second half, the Eagles scored three times to snap a halftime tie and rolled into the Division 1 state championship game with a 4-2 triumph over Concord-Carlisle.
“It all starts in preseason in the summer. It’s hard work day in and day out,” said Prep senior midfielder Michael Hutchinson, one of his team’s four goal scorers in this state semifinal. “We deserve this — and I believe we have a good shot to win it all.”
Falling behind for the first time this postseason 10 minutes into the contest, the Eagles (19-1-2) turned up the proverbial heat from that point on, getting the equalizer before dominating in the second half.
Now they’ll have a chance to win their second state title in the last four years Saturday at Doyle Field in Leominster (2:30 p.m.), where they’ll take on the winner of Tuesday’s state semifinal between second seeded Natick (15-5) and No. 3 Newton South (15-2-3).
“Once we started creating all those chances in the first half, I knew it was only a matter of time before we were going to break them down and score,” admitted long-time St. John’s Prep head coach Dave Crowell. “We have too much quality to not put the ball in the back of the net — and we did.”
It was the second consecutive game that the Eagles punched home four goals; they now have netted a dozen markers in four postseason contests heading into Saturday’s title tilt.
Captain Finn McCabe, whose scored to tie the game at the 20-minute mark of the first half (and earned his squad’s postgame ‘Golden Boot’ as Player of the Match), said he and his teammates weren’t concerned after Concord-Carlisle’s Ben Heckman got behind an aggressive Prep defense and rifled a shot home.
“I had no worries at all,” said McCabe. “Usually (in practice) we do the starting lineup against the scout team, and we go down all the time … Most of our guys have been there before.”
McCabe backed up those words by recording the equalizer. Off a corner, he gathered the ball after it bounced into the box and patiently waited for a C-C defender to make a step, giving him a clear lane to put his shot into the right side of the Patriots’ net.
“This week through practice we’ve been working on finishing,” siad McCabe. “Coach has been emphasizing, ‘Just put it in the back of the net; there’s no need to blast it over the net.'”
“Once Finn passed that into the back of the net,” added Crowell, using his term for a softer yet higher percentage shot out front, “instead of trying to blast it back to Danvers, I knew we’d be OK.”
Switching sides in the second half, the fierce winds blowing into their faces seemed to have no effect on the Eagles.
Ryan King, another senior captain, gave St. John’s Prep the lead for good in the 45th minute by scooping up another loose ball off a corner that Concord-Carlisle (14-6-1) was unable to clear and knocking it into the twine.
Then it was Hutchinson’s turn. Collecting the ball from teammate Ryan Levis, he took it to the 15-yard line and cranked a left-footed blast into the opposite corner of the Patriots’ net for a 3-1 lead.
“I was able to hold off my defender, and my winger JJ (Koulalis) made a great run, drawing the D. I was able to cut in and took the shot,” said Hutchinson. “I feel like I’m a very simple player, but sometimes I like to do a little twist.”
Crowell, who felt his club tired out the 13th seeded Patriots over the final 40 minutes of play, noted that Hutchinson’s dominant foot isn’t his left.
“That’s a high school bomb. That’s a bomb anywhere,” he said of Hutchinson’s goal. “You knew the minute he got it he was shooting.”
All-American Garrison Murphy capped off the scoring for St. John’s Prep three minutes later when he converted a touch pass from Owen Beeny for his seventh goal of the playoffs.
Fellow senior Matt Droggitis made four saves, all in the second half, for St. John’s Prep. His best save came when he ventured just outside the box to cut down the angle and deny C-C’s Adrian Avini with a diving stop.