McDonogh senior captain Maddox Christian knew Mount Saint Joseph was capable of scoring goals, so even though the No. 3 ranked Eagles led the host No. 11 Gaels at halftime, he was prepared to turn up the intensity in the second half.
He did more than that, he took over the game — scoring a goal and assisting on another in the first four minutes and the Eagles added a late goal and cruised to a 5-0 victory.
“Our coach said it best, we haven’t been playing the best in the second half, so I knew we had to come out with some energy and put them away as fast as possible,” Christian said. “So that’s all I had in my mind — going at ’em.”
His first goal came from 27 yards out after a short feed from Val Quaranta.
“I saw an open goal and nobody was on me, so I tried to bend it to the bottom right corner and it went in,” Christian said.
Just 34 seconds later, Christian raced down the right flank and fed Quaranta with a low cross for the first of his two second-half goals.
“I saw people running into the box and I knew if I got the ball to Val he was going to score. A great finisher, so I knew I had to get it to him and I did that and he scored and took control of the game and saw it through.” Christian said.
It was the second assist for Christian on a low feed across the goal mouth. The first gave the Eagles a 2-0 lead with 14:25 left in the first half after Quaranta’s corner kick ended up being headed in by Drew Goodrich off a Maddox Ward assist.
“We’ve been training [low crosses] a lot,” McDonogh coach Brandon Quaranta said. “Most of the year our crosses have been high and we haven’t been having a chance to score, so we’ve really been training keeping the ball along the floor and at least giving us the possibility of finding somebody for an easier finish. And I thought you saw that today. We executed a few and they ended up in goal.”
The fact the Christian was in on three of the goals was not a surprise to Coach Quaranta.
“I’ll tell you exactly what I told him: ‘If we get that type of player from him, we could be a championship team,’” the coach said. “Like most of our guys, there have been some good moments and some bad moments, but he is capable of that every game and if we see it consistently we are a different team.”
Mount Saint Joseph was coming off a 5-5 tie with No. 1 ranked Calvert Hall in a game they led until a penalty kick in the waning seconds, so the Eagles were prepared.
“Our coach told us it was going to be a tough game, so we knew we had to come prepared and that’s what we did. We prepped it in practice, we prepped it before the game and we saw it through. We did what we were supposed to do.” Christian said.
The Gaels had some chances in the first half when they outshot the Eagles, 7-6. They had a back-header that was saved by freshman goalie Will Chisamore and a shot by Brendan Chairs that nearly grazed the crossbar.
The best chance from Reilly Simmons was saved by a diving Chisamore with under 10 minutes remaining.
“First half we were right there and we tied Calvert Hall last game, coming off strong and we just couldn’t put it together today,” Chairs said. “We had a lot of confidence. We were ready and it just didn’t come together today. We just couldn’t finish.”
Part of the reason was Chisamore, who had six saves and made several smart decisions, while replacing injured starting goalie Teddy Kolasky for his ninth straight game.
“You have to really look through the history of the league to find a freshman in our league who’s going in and then being as successful as him, especially since it was something he wasn’t expecting coming into the year,” Quaranta said. “If you would have told me he would be 6-3 in nine games and had three or four shutouts, I would have signed up for that all day. That’s just one of the best performances from a freshman goalie that I’ve seen in the league in a long time and it’s a difficult thing for any freshman, let alone in that position.”
McDonogh improved to 10-3 overall and 7-3 in the conference, while the Gaels dropped to 2-6-2 in league play and 2-6-3 overall.
“That’s a good team, that team could beat anybody in the league,” Quaranta said. “They’ve proved that over the last couple weeks, again, that’s how it is in soccer. If it’s 2-1 and they score a free kick at 2-1 then this is an entirely different game, but they are capable of not only making the playoffs, but going on a run and beating anybody in the league and we have a lot of respect for Mike [St. Martin] and a lot of respect for that program and that’s a team that’s going to make some noise before the end of the year.”
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