The timing of it all works out pretty well. St. Anne’s-Belfield’s offense had struggled offensively in its previous two contests, and with a game against soccer giant Episcopal just a day away, STAB found the scoring touch early and often in the first half against rival Covenant. Behind a barrage of goals from Mike Abel, Alex Luna and Jay Everett the Saints cruised to a 4-1 win over the Eagles.
“We loss twice to very good teams and were very defensive so we played in a new formation, came out with two guys up top,” said St. Anne’s coach Mark O’Donnell. “I think that gave us a lot of confidence, and to be honest, we just hit some very nice shots. Who knows if we hit those again?”
Less than 10 minutes into the game, Abel, a team captain, put his team out in front when he found the back of the net after two shots bounced off Covenant defenders and a rebound landed right in front of him.
“We’ve been really working in practice and this was kind of a bounce-back game for us because we were able to really play in sync and get great chances to score,” Abel said. “Our center-mids, (Kendall Pettygrove and Jay Everett) were able to really keep control and get it all together for us.”
Shortly there after, Everett made it 2-0 when he capitalized on a penalty kick. Midway through the half, Luna scored the game’s prettiest goal when he put a little extra english on shot that angled its way to the top right corner of the net. And for some extra insurance, Abel put in a trickler to give STAB all the offense they needed and make it 4-0 heading into the second half.
“We’re really working on trying to neutralize what the other teams are doing well,” said Covenant coach Bryan Verbrugge. “In the first half a lot of their offense came through the center-mids and setting up their strikers who were creative and dangerous, which is what you want your strikers to be. In the second half we tried to neutralize that and take away some of those long ball options.”
Coming into the second frame, the Eagles came out a different squad as they were better able to mark up against the Saints as well as finally facilitate some significant offense of their own. After a few close calls, striker Sean Rutherford finished off a clean shot to put Covenant on the board.
For the remainder of the game, both teams went back and forth with the two goalkeepers, STAB’s Carl Carpenter and Covenant’s Josh Sipe, coming out on top in each occasion.
The Saints outshot the Eagles by a 12-4 margin.
Covenant (3-3) heads to Virginia Episcopal today at 3:30 p.m.
STAB (1-2) travels north to Episcopal at 4:30 p.m.
