Page One

Playing against a winless John Swett (Crockett) team, the St. Mary’s boys’ soccer squad survived a sluggish first half to rout the Indians, 6-1, on Wednesday. 

“We wanted to try some new things this game, and we didn’t stay organized on defense in the first half,” said St. Mary’s head coach Teale Matteson, who was missing three key starters for the match due to injury. 

Senior forward Pat Barry scored both St. Mary’s goals in the first half, but the Panthers’ defense split wide open for the Indians’ Morgan Edwards, who headed home a cross past St. Mary’s goalkeeper Mark Pankow to keep the game close. 

Leading just 2-1 at halftime against the overmatched Swett team, the Panthers (5-7-2 overall, 4-0-1 BSAL) poured on the offense in the second half, scoring four goals and keeping the ball for most of the half.  

The Panthers were clearly the better team, but weren’t able to translate their superior skill into a convincing lead until midfielder Zack Huddleston took a feed from forward Kyle Davies and beat Swett goalkeeper Mike Edwards on the near post in the 55th minute, followed by a penalty kick that was earned and converted by midfielder Bryan Warren, giving the Panthers a 4-1 lead. 

Barry completed his hat trick minutes later off of another assist by Davies. Barry has been coming on strong as of late, and Matteson said the senior has earned some good fortune with hard work. 

“Pat’s really coming alive, it’s been nice to see,” Matteson said. “He’s playing really smart soccer right now, and his example is leading the others. Our younger players see his how his hard work over the past four years is paying off, and it shows them what they can accomplish as well.” 

A 78th minute goal by defender Nolan Horinouchi capped the scoring. 

The Panthers are now set up for a showdown with Kennedy High on Jan. 26. They are the only teams left in the BSAL with no losses. St. Mary’s only blemish in league play is a tie with Piedmont two weeks ago, while Kennedy beat Piedmont 4-1 this week. Both schools figure to run the remainder of the BSAL schedule without a loss, and their matchup should decide the league’s regular season champion. 

Matteson said that while the newly-formed BSAL does have some competition problems with only three teams having a realistic chance at the title, he purposely gave his team a rough preseason schedule to compensate. 

“We knew this would happen. You’d like to see parity for the sake of competition, but there’s not as much parity with the new league,” he said. That’s why we went out of league for good competition. Now we have seven losses, but we’re undefeated in league.”