By Phil Murphy
Senior Content/Multimedia Manager, Washington D.C.**CLICK HERE for 60 videos from Tuesday.**CLICK HERE for over 300 photos.With a logjam at the No. 4 through No. 7 seeds in the WCAC tournament -- which is just a week away -- points are at a premium for
O'Connell (5-8-6).
And with heralded
DeMatha in town on Tuesday -- whose only scoreless game this year was in the teams' previous meeting on September 18 -- the Knights needed at least a draw heading into their final regular season game on Friday.
After 160 minutes of aggregate play, the Stags and Knights are still goalless in 2008, as the teams tied, 0-0 again, in their penultimate regular-season game.
"They played completely defensively, 5-4-1,"said DeMatha coach
Daffyd Evans, whose Stags are ranked in the top 20 nationally by both ESPN and the NSCAA. "It's a case of us trying to break them down. Today, I was delighted with how we played. We played very, very well on a very bumpy, narrow field with wind.
"But I don't think you can compare the teams today, because at least we tried to play… Our boys couldn't have done more to make a game of it. But it's difficult when the opposition determines from the start just to defend"
Added O'Connell coach
Chuck Laporte: "We're just trying to hold position in the league so we're in the right position when the playoffs start, for us. We get a point today, but it's all going hinge on what
Paul VI does, what
Carroll does, what
Good Counsel does.
"It's that sixth place to fourth place thing that keeps jockeying back-and-forth."
Despite its conservative, grinding pace, the game had its scoring chances.
Stag sophomore
Cody Albrecht had a first-half free kick ricochet off the
bottom of the far post. Senior striker
Chris Hegngi had
several point-blank shots saved,
sail high or
deflect wide.
And the Knights nearly took a late lead on counterattack when a 65th-minute volley by junior
John Ciampa narrowly missed the crossbar.
"They are probably the most physical team that we've played all season,"
said Hegngi, DeMatha's leading scorer with multiple goals in seven games. "They've held us scoreless many times over the past few years, so I think they know how to play us.
"They drop a lot of numbers behind the ball and make it tough for us to play the game we like to play."
The Stags' offensive outage was also instigated by the play of Knight goalkeeper
Alex Harrington.
Harrington played brilliantly,
swiping several dangerous crosses from the edge of the six-yard box, while using every extremity --
including his face -- to keep DeMatha (13-0-5) off the scoreboard.
"Against a team like that, this feels like a win, even though we didn't get the three points,"
he said, recording his fourth clean sheet of the season. "For the most part this season, we've really come out for the big games and showed up, played our hardest then. We just need to convert that to the lesser games."
Added Laporte: "I think our kids are stepping up. I think it's an adrenaline rush from them. We don't really do anything different against them than we do against other teams. It's just that it's
DeMatha."
Hopefully, O'Connell's ability to elevate game play against top-flight teams is a contagious phenomenon. DeMatha faces
Gonzaga Prep on Friday at 4 p.m. in its regular-season finale, a team the Stags tied, 2-2, on September 24.
The Purple Eagles (18-1-1) are ranked No. 17 in the NSCAA national poll and No. 22 in the ESPNRise Top 50.
"I think if we play as well as we did today, we'll do very well Friday because Gonzaga will come out and play," Evans said. "We'll have much more space to create chances on Friday, way more space to score on Friday and two teams that will try and win the game on Friday.
"It will be a better spectacle, as well."
E-mail: pmurphy@digitalsports.com
