DEFEND THE DOJO: St. John's surges in first half to turn back intown rival Shrewsbury

SHREWSBURY — The St. John’s soccer team lost three games last season, one of the setbacks coming to intown rival Shrewsbury.

The latest installment of the Battle of the ’Bury, though, went to the Pioneers as they rode a three-goal outburst in a span of nine minutes early in the first half to a 5-0 victory over the Colonials on an unseasonably, super hot Thursday night before a large crowd at Pioneer Field.

“It’s definitely the game the most people come to; I mean, it was packed today,” said senior captain Liam Heneghan, who assisted on the second goal and netted the third. “It was just good to get a 5-0 win in front of everyone and get the season started right with the first home game.

“And the rivalry has always been kind of a thing. Two schools in one town, so you kind of have to see who runs the town. It’s good to run the town this year.”

The Pioneers improved to 2-0 while the Colonials dropped to 0-2. The series stands at 2-2-2 over the last six meetings.

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Senior captain Adrian Sobczak put the Pioneers on the board when his free kick from 35 yards out and straight down the middle curled into the top left corner and just out of the reach of junior keeper Julian Cho in the ninth minute much to the delight of the red-clad Dojo student section.

“I just wanted to calm the game down and make the fan section proud,” said Sobczak, who added a pair of helpers. “I’ve been practicing my free kicks, so I just wanted to get it on target and see what happened.

“I thought about the knuckleball, but went with the curler and it went in. It was a great moment. Got to celebrate with the fans; it was great to see all the guys over there.”

That was the first of three goals on as many shots.

Junior Will Baltas slipped a left-footed grounder from a tight angle down low past two defenders inside the far left post in the 14th minute, and Hennegan converted in a similar fashion, his shot bouncing off the post and in, two minutes later.

“It’s certainly not easy against a quality team to come back,” said 11th-year Shrewsbury coach Matt Wheeler, who graduated a dozen or so seniors, including eight to nine starters from last year’s Division 1 state tournament squad that went 15-3-3.

“They were better than us. We have a lot of work to do in terms of meeting this program’s expectations, but we’re confident that we can put the work in and fix everything.”

Senior Matthew DeHoratius and junior Lucas Rocha added second-half strikes while seniors Justin Sullivan (5 saves) and Jacob Labarre (1) combined for the clean sheet in front of a young backline anchored by junior Jackson Dorazio, who is undoubtedly one of the state’s premier center backs.

Sullivan made a couple of terrific saves in the first half and Rocha saved a goal with his boot off the line late in the second half as the Colonials maintained a high compete level despite the daunting deficit.

“Great start, nice goals,” third-year Pioneers coach Kurt Swanbeck said. “They played well in counterattack and I made some adjustments substitution-wise and then we fell off a little bit and the game stayed fairly even.

“They had some dangerous opportunities and our keepers came up big when they needed to, which is their job.”

The Pioneers went 18-3-1 last season and lost to Catholic Conference foe and eventual Division 1 state champion St. John’s Prep, 1-0, in a semifinal. All told, they’re 34-7-4 under Swanbeck.

Expectations are high at St. John’s, but there is, obviously, a lot of work to do and a long way to go.

“We’re a very technical team, and we moved the ball well,” Swanbeck said. “We just have to keep pushing them to do that because we can and play with pace.

“We’ve got great attackers, and we’re still trying to shore up our defense, and if we can put those two together, I think we’ll be tough to beat.”

—Contact Rich Garven at rgarven@telegram.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @RichGarvenTG.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: St. John's surges in first half to turn back intown rival Shrewsbury