WESTWOOD —
The chances were there for the Xaverian Brothers soccer team throughout the first half and it seemed like it would only be a matter of time before the Hawks would be rewarded for their pressure.
That time never came as the Hawks were unable to finish off any of those opportunities in the first half and in the second half they rarely materialized. Meanwhile, St. John’s Prep cashed in on its first dangerous bid and went on for the 2-0 win in a Catholic Conference tilt at the Hawk Bowl.
While the Hawks had the handful of chances to go in front, all the Eagles needed to do to take the lead was pounce on a poor clearance and volley home the loose ball.
For a team that has scored just 21 goals in 11 games, with five of those coming in one game, letting the opportunities go by the wayside has been an issue for much of the season.
“We’ve been working on trying to generate chances and quality opportunities is something we’ve been focused on this season,” said Hawks coach Gary Bowers, whose team is winless in the last four games to drop to 5-3-3 overall and 2-2-2 in the Catholic Conference. “We successfully did that, and that’s something I want the guys to focus on a bit. Good teams convert so we want to get that ball in the net when we create those chances, but the important part is they’re generating the offense, they’re running the scheme correctly. You have to hope that in most scenarios you are going to be able to finish those.”
The chances were of high quality and numerous in the opening 40 minutes as the Hawks owned a 7-0 edge in shots with St. John’s Prep goalkeeper Steve Pasinski keeping Xaverian at bay.
Xaverian’s best chance came on its first quality opportunity about six minutes in as Paul Dupre hammered a free kick from about 25 yards out that was tipped onto the crossbar by Pasinski, with the Eagles defense finally clearing a rebound in front after a short scrum in front of the goalmouth.
That type of missed chance -- doing everything right except finishing -- summed up the Hawks struggles of the past couple matches.
The Hawks spread the field nicely in the opening half with Greg Stokinger delivering a fine cross from the right corner that was headed narrowly over the bar by James Vickery in the 10th minute.
Pasinski snatched away another quality bid in the 12th as he smothered a corner kick from Dupre to the near post about seven yards out, falling on it just before the charging, unmarked Stokinger could get his foot to the ball.
“That’s his best game, by far,” said St. John’s Prep coach Dave Crowell of his junior goalkeeper. “He let one go early for a rebound, after that he was steady, controlled the box better than he has all year. It was a big game for him, big confidence lift for him.”
When the Hawks did find the inside of the net, they saw it quickly waved off for being offside. Stack managed to fight through the Eagles defense, and laid a nice touch to his right and sent Nick Logie through on goal, but he was judged to have been in a step behind the last defender.
St. John’s Prep, a team that returned just one starter from their state title a year ago, pulled out a goal on what appeared to be a harmless enough chip into the area by Greg Tremblay from just inside the midfield stripe. The headed clearance, instead of going out toward the middle of the field, went into the turf and Kelley Johnson was first to the loose ball, volleying it off the bounce leaving Xaverian goalkeeper Evan Polanik no chance and putting the Eagles (6-4-3, 3-2-1) in front 1-0 in the 49th minute.
The lone quality chance in the second for the Hawks came through Stack, who drilled a shot from the top right of the box that narrowly sailed over the bar.
The Eagles added insurance when Garrett Folger was ruled to have been onsides and finished off a feed from Zachary Hathaway in the 78th to account for the final margin.
“It was a totally different game (in the second half). We did a better job of marking, played tougher in the midfield and we finished off our chances and they didn’t,” said Crowell. “That’s soccer. We’ve been on the other side many times.”
The recent struggles to finish have for the time being knocked the Hawks into third place behind BC High and St. John’s Prep, but Bowers feels that the issue is simply temporary.
“Certainly you look at it and you say, ‘Well, we’re going to continue emphasizing,’” said Bowers. “For these guys it will come and they just have to be sure of that and confident in themselves and composed. I have every confidence in them so I’m sure that in the long run what we’re trying to do they’ll be able to execute fine.”
