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Sports

Great Goaltending Not Enough For Xaverian Soccer

Malden Catholic hands the Hawks a 3-1 loss to keep Xaverian winless.

Intensity and communication are two things that Xaverian boys soccer coach Gary Bowers hopes to see become the hallmarks of his squad over the course of the 2010 season.

The effort has been there for the Hawks, but the execution is still a bit of a work in progress. That was in evidence in the Hawks' 3-1 loss at the hands of Catholic Conference foe Malden Catholic Saturday afternoon at Brother Gilbert Stadium in Malden.

"Malden Catholic is a very strong, good-sized team and that presented some challenges for us," said Bowers, whose Hawks dropped to 0-1-2 on the season. "They also had some very dangerous looks to goal and played intelligently. I thought that we let them bring the play to us a little bit too much today. Hopefully in the future we're going to continue to focus on imposing our scheme of play instead of reacting to our opponents."

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The loss overshadowed the stellar play of Xaverian goalkeeper Brennan Sullivan. The junior did yeoman's work to keep the Hawks within striking distance, coming through with 16 big saves, many of which came at point-blank range.

"He is a special player," Bowers said of Sullivan. "He kept us in the game and he's a guy we're counting on to do that. I know he'll be upset about some of the ones he gave up but we'll work through them and he learns from every shot he faces. We have every confidence in him back there."

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The Lancers (3-0-1) put their size advantage to work from the opening whistle, attempting to muscle the smaller Hawks off the ball during every challenge.

In the 21st minute, Sullivan made a terrific play, coming out of the box to challenge MC's Jesse Bosco. He made the block, but the ball found its way onto the foot of Nick Anneze, who fired home a 20-yard blast to give the Lancers a 1-0 lead.

MC scored again four minutes into the second half, when David Linder dropped a pass to Bosco on the far sideline. Bosco had a step on his man, cut across the field, and unleashed a perfect shot just inside the far corner to put the Lancers ahead, 2-0.

"The first one was just a through ball that their kid was able to get to. I tried to come out hard and cut off the angle but he just kind of slotted it through," Sullivan said. "On the second goal, I saw them coming down the side and he was able to cut in, which we don't like to let happen. He got a shot off and placed it nicely."

Rather than faltering from facing a two-goal deficit, the Hawks instead kicked it into gear and got one back 11 minutes later. Starting with a free kick from midfield, the Hawks John Vetrano made a great play to gain possession and draw the MC keeper out to challenge. Vetrano's shot attempt was blocked, but Kyle Darrow buried the rebound to make it a 2-1 game.

"John worked hard in there to create some confusion and made them commit some defenders and then Kyle's opportunistic and he got there to score the goal," Bowers said.

The Lancers regained control from that point, and Nolan Alberghini added an insurance goal with 7:27 left to play.

Bowers has been happy with the effort of his Hawks through three games as the team has worked hard and kept its intensity up until the final whistle.

"We're going to continue to work on moving the ball a little quicker out of our midfield and connecting with the forwards a little more successfully and hopefully get some better flow of play and opportunities," he said. "Defensively, we have to be much more organized and communicative, and if we can get the support defense shored up a little bit, we can start slowing teams down and make it tactically much more difficult for our opponents."

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