The Dawgs Disrupt St. Sebastian’s Friday Night Lights

Nobles Boys Varsity Soccer beat St. Sebastian’s 2-1 Friday night in their ISL opener.

“Seb’s is always a hard-fought rivalry, no matter what their team looks like or what our team looks like,” forward Mateo Cosentino (Class I) said.

Facing Seb’s raucous student section, Cosentino was determined to bring his best to his fourth and final matchup with the school.

“I want to end on a win, especially on their turf,” he said. “I want them to be upset.”

Upset they were, as Cosentino scored 20 minutes into regulation.

“Felt pretty good to get the go-ahead goal. Great cross off Andrew Martins (Class I). It just left me with the easy tap-in,” he said.

In the week leading up to the matchup, the team practiced playing wide, hoping to keep the ball away from Seb’s strong midfield.

“If we can force the ball to the side and mark up really tight in the midfield, they won’t be dangerous,” midfielder Charlie Hood (Class I) said. “They really only have two guys that pose any threat to us.”

On gameday, Nobles was surprised to find Seb’s star wing, Griffin Collins, stationed in the backline to inhibit Martins.

“In the first half, they put him at right back to cover [Martins], but uh… [Martins] buried them,” Captain Mack Smink (Class I) said.

Desperate to respond to Cosentino and Martins’ goals, Collins returned to the wing, where he met an unyielding Bulldog backline.

“It was a great game by Ryan Callahan (Class I). He locked [Collins] down all game long,” Smink said. “He’s a great player, and he had us on the ropes a lot, but we just took him as a team and tried to make him beat us all. It’s hard to do that.”

Playing as a cohesive team has set the squad apart from competitors this season. 

“When we played Andover, they were yelling at each other a lot. They were taking stuff that would happen in the game and letting it affect how their team would operate,” Smink said. “We try to do the opposite. We take the positive things and focus more on those than yelling at each other over little things.”

With a third win under his belt, Smink looks ahead to their game against Taft this weekend. “It was a great team victory. Looking forward to Sunday.”