St. Mary’s overwhelms No. 5 Calvert Hall

Despite his team undefeated record, St. Mary’s midfielder Gavin Burlace said the “real fun” began Friday with the start of MIAA A Conference competition.

The No. 3 Saints put together a rousing effort, defeating fifth-ranked Calvert Hall, 13-3, at Pascal Field in Annapolis. Burlace, a senior bound to the University of Notre Dame, finished with three goals and two assists for St. Mary’s.

The Saints (7-0 overall), ranked No. 5 nationally by USA Lacrosse and 7th by Inside Lacrosse, scored three times inside the opening 6 minutes and led 7-2 at halftime en route to win No. 1 in what’s considered the nation’s premier high school boys lacrosse league. UMBC-bound attack Jake Adams added two goals and an assist.

“We’re 1-0 and beat a very good Calvert Hall program tonight. As I told the team, when we looked at that scoreboard at the end of the night was 13-3, but what we really saw was 1-0,” said St. Mary’s coach Victor Lilly. “That’s what it’s about.”

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“The first game of the MIAA A season, that’s when the real fun, the real season begins,” said Burlace. “It didn’t take us long to get fired up.”

Thirteen seconds, to be exact, as Wyatt Cotton sent a shot from about 52 yards into the Calvert Hall goal. The Saints burned a pressing Cardinal defense again, this time with Steven Schummer putting a shot from about 45 yards past a recovering Calvert Hall goalie Alex Swartz.

Erik Chick (Johns Hopkins) and Bobby Keane (High Point) each added two goals for St. Mary’s. Naval Academy-bound attack Nick Golini got into the action with a goal and an assist in the third quarter.

The Saints led 12-3 with less than 5 minutes left in the third quarter. Shea Kennedy (Hofstra) stopped seven shots in the goal.

Calvert Hall's Donnie Lewis is doubled-team by St. Mary's defenders during Friday's MIAA A Conference lacrosse match. The Saints built a 7-2 halftime advantage as they improved to 7-0. (John Bowers)

It’s the second straight perfect March for St. Mary’s, which won its first 15 decisions last spring. The Saints lost to McDonogh in the MIAA A final at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

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With 17 seniors (15 committed to play in college next spring), St. Mary’s is hoping to make another short trip from its historic downtown Annapolis campus to Navy Stadium for the MIAA A title game in late May.

“We got a really good group. I think we were underrated because we blew a lot of teams out early so a lot of people were sleeping on us,” said Cotton, a senior midfielder. “This is a good first win to show we’re still a great team.”

“I don’t feel the team has the cohesiveness of the squad last year here, but we’re getting there,” said Lilly. “It’s a different team so it’s interesting.”

Syracuse-bound midfield/attack Wyatt Hottle scored twice for Calvert Hall (2-3, 0-1 MIAA A), and Shuey Kelly added a score. After a rough first half Friday evening, the Cardinals got off to a promising start in the second half as Kelly, who’s headed to Georgetown, scored unassisted in the opening minute to pull to 7-3.

The Saints sullied the momentum with goals from Adams, Golini, Chick and Keane in a 2 minute, 30 second window. Will Goers (Navy) completed a 6-goal run with an unassisted tally, putting St. Mary’s up, 13-3, with 6:15 left in regulation.

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“They (St. Mary’s) was two to three steps faster than us in everything. We were slow, not because we are slow, maybe I overworked them but we got to figure out what to do,” said Calvert Hall coach Bryan Kelly, whose team suffered one of its worst league losses in many years. “In a weird way our kids responded but we just didn’t execute…we dropped a lot of balls. They put the pressure on us and they played better than us, it’s that simple.”

Both teams gathered a photo at midfield before the game as the match was played in the memory of Mia Zinn and Rob Kavovit.

Kavovit, a former Syracuse star, committed suicide in the spring of 2021. Proceeds from Friday’s match went to the 15 for Life Foundation, a non-profit founded in honor of Kavovit to raise awareness about mental health.

Zinn, whose father, Chris, is the longtime athletic trainer for Calvert Hall, died in February after a valiant fight with Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare childhood cancer. Both teams wore pink shoestrings with their cleats and coaches and support staff displayed pink bandanas with Mia’s Army in black letters.

St. Mary’s president Dr. Andrew Moore was a teacher and coached two MIAA A championship soccer teams during a 20-year stint (1992-2012) at Calvert Hall.

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Wyatt Cotton (left) set the tone early for undefeated St. Mary's with a deep strike into an open net and Gavin Burlace recorded a first half hat trick. The Saints play Tuesday at No. 4 Loyola Blakefield. (Derek Toney)

NO. 3 ST. MARY’S 13, NO. 5 CALVERT HALL 3

Calvert Hall 1 1 1 0 - 3

St. Mary 4 3 5 1 - 13

Goals: Calvert Hall - Wyatt Hottle 2, Shuey Kelly; St. Mary - Gavin Burlace 3, Jake Adams 2, Erik Chick 2, Bobby Keane 2, Wyatt Cotton, Will Goers, Nick Golini, Steven Schummer

Assists: Calvert Hall - Josh Nagy; St. Mary’s - Burlace 2, Adams, Golini

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Saves: Calvert Hall - Alex Swartz 12; St. Mary’s - Shea Kennedy 7