Bishop Guertin's Ryan Neary leaps in the race to the ball while covered by Nashua North's Josh Alvarez during Thursday night's Division I game between city rivals at Stellos Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Ryan Neary had an extra spring in his step on the Motta Field turf at Stellos Stadium on Thursday night.

For that matter, so did the entire Bishop Guertin High School team he plays for in their 5-0 dominant boys soccer win over city rival Nashua North.

It wasn’t the rivalry that pumped up Neary, who had two goals and an assist. It was the fact his cousin from Rochester, N.Y., Sean Emmert, has a serious illness.

“For me, it’s personal,” the junior forward said of the play. “We’re all working for my cousin. He’s going through some difficult times. We’re working for him, working for this. We’re all playing for him. We wear bracelets for him. Everything’s for him. I really wanted this tonight, for him, for our seniors (on Senior Night). Just a great game.”

“I’m really happy for Ryan,” Guertin coach Tyler Vandeventer said. “He’s been our leading assister, but the ball going in the goal for him is really big for his confidence.”

The Cards, who gave their other rival, Nashua South, a battle on Tuesday, took a 1-0 lead going into the half on Neary’s first goal, assisted by Trent Cormier, seven minutes in. But Neary then in the second half started a flurry of four goals as this wasn’t a contest. BG is now 10-1-2 as everyone in Division I is jockeying for positon with just over a week to go in the regular season.

“For us, we just didn’t turn up tonight,” North coach Thomas Prentice said, his team now 2-9-1 and a longshot for the postseason, plus without a legit shot on goal last night. “Their (BG’s) desire, their grit, just won them the game. The 50-50 balls they dominated all the goals they deserved.

“We were lucky at halftime it was 1-0…That’s the quality we’ve been missing. That desire, want to get that final touch in the box.”

Neary had that desire throughout, and he booted one just off a diving North keeper Logan DeLeon nearly 12 minutes into the second half for a 2-0 Cards lead.

The Cards then broke things completely open with three goals in a six-minute span. Twelve minutes later, Liam Ireland redirected a ground ball free kick from Trent Cormier to make it 3-0, a clever set play when many thought Cormier would try to boom it.

Josh Corriveau connected four minutes after that and Cormier, who just missed two goals in the first half, did finally get his in the 69th minute to finish the scoring, giving him 20 points on the season. Other assists on the night for BG went to Corriveau and John Kraus.

A busy DeLeon had 10 saves for North while BG keeper Beau Boughter, a four-year starter, basically needed to control some North created chaos late in the first half, was credited due that with three saves but faced no real direct threats. These were all the first goals for BG against a Nashua team since 2022.

“The big emphasis at halftime was to just maintain possession, maintain possession,” Vandeventer said. “You kind of see what we were after.”