By Mukala Kabongo
NEFJ Staff
DANVERS — St. John’s Prep’s stifling defense bottled up Shane Eason and the high-powered Methuen offense for a 44-7 win in an MIAA D1 quarterfinal on Friday night.
The top-seeded Eagles (9-1) will face fourth-seeded Needham next weekend (Day/Time/Location TBD) with a trip to the Super Bowl at Gillette Stadium on the line. Methuen falls to 8-2 with Thanksgiving Day still remaining.
St. John’s Prep’s defense was the story of the game. The Eagles picked off Josh Danella five times.
St. John’s Prep head coach Brian St. Pierre always says November is when he wants his team to playing its best football. After the loss to Catholic Memorial a few weeks ago, the Eagles had to do some deep soul searching and appear to be playing their best ball at the perfect time.
These last three weeks the Eagles returned to form, earning a shutout Catholic Conference win over rival Boston College High – who is also in the Final 4 after a win over Springfield Central – then followed it up with a shutout of Attleboro in the opening round of the playoffs before dominating a very good Methuen team.
The Rangers came into this one with one of the best players in the state in Eason, who was coming off a game where he had over 300 yards from scrimmage and five touchdowns.
The Eagles set the tone early and never looked back.
“Line of scrimmage was dominating both sides,” said St. Pierre. “We tackled well, we bottled them up. We prepared hard for it, they had our full attention, they’re a good team, they had our full respect.”
The Rangers tried to get Eason going on their first offensive drive, but the Eagles defense were prepared for the shifty back and the Rangers punted.
Chris Vargas and Merrick Barlow got things going quickly for the St. John’s Prep offense as they connected on a 34-yard completion to get into the red zone. Justin Quigley ran it in to get the Eagles on the board.
Once again, the Eagles defensive line made things difficult for the Rangers forcing another three-and-out. St. John’s Prep’s next offensive possession looked similar to its first.
Gael Garcia broke free for a big run that got the Eagles in the red zone and then ran it in from a yard out to make it a 16-0 game after Jordan Toribio converted the two point conversion. After two made field goals by Lj Laws to put the Eagles up 22-0, Methuen gained some momentum with a touchdown drive capped off with a short Josh Danella run to cut the lead to 22-7.
With momentum slowly shifting towards the Rangers, the Eagles defense forced its second turnover of the game courtesy of Jackson Tucker.
“We had a lot of motivation to win the line of scrimmage and I think we did that,” said Tucker.
Dayvian Sullivan took the opening kickoff of the second half 64-yards to the house. Lucas Pelletier picked off Danella on the ensuing possession that resulted in an Eagles touchdown again, making it 38-7.
“We knew they had a good offense, we had to do something, we had to stop them,” said Sullivan. “Defense did a really good job, multiple turnovers.”
Since allowing 34 points against Catholic Memorial, the Eagles have outscored opponents 114-7. This Eagles team has completely flipped a switch heading into their 11th semifinals game in 11 years and will look to get back to Gillette stadium for a third straight year.
“It’s different here, the expectations are through the roof, we’ve had a ton of success and that’s why these kids come here too,” said coach St. Pierre. “They want to play in the biggest stakes against the best teams and we’ve been fortunate enough to do that the last six, seven years.”