St. Albans Soccer finished the first week of their regular season just like they started it – with a shutout win over a Northwest DC neighbor. The Bulldogs followed-up on Tuesday’s 3-0 win over St. John’s with a 5-0 shutout of Maret. Five minutes into the match, senior Tom Brady jumped on a mishandled ball in the Maret defensive half, barreled down the center lane and found his brother Patrick just inside the penalty area on the left wing. Patrick received the ball in stride and buried a low shot under the sprawling Frogs’ keeper. Less than four minutes later senior Chris Bates finished a perfectly executed corner to put the Bulldogs up 2-0 at the 9:04 mark. Tom Brady was the catalyst again with a perfect corner strike to the far post where senior Thomas Bean headed it to Patrick Brady at the goal mouth. Brady’s header was narrowly stopped by the Maret keeper and Bates was there to tap in the rebound.

 

The Bulldogs went goal line to goal line for their third goal. Junior keeper William Eastright gathered an attempt from 25 yards out and quickly rolled an outlet to senior back Rhys McIntosh. McIntosh head manned to sophomore Ryan Lee along the left sideline where he beat a defender at mid-field before finding a streaking XiXi Espinoza down the left side. The junior attack outran three Frogs and hit Bates, who himself had run past two defenders, for a tap-in at the goal mouth with 18:04 gone in the first half. 

 

Twelve minutes later freshman Will Long thwarted an attempted clear at mid-field igniting another Espinoza run past two defenders on the left wing. Tom Brady knocked Espinoza’s goal-mouth feed to brother Patrick for his second goal of the day and a 4-0 STA lead with 30:18 on the clock. Bean finished the scoring at the 63-minute mark with a left-wing free-kick from 20 yards out that he curled around the near post.