Stonington — Rosters change every season, but expectations rarely do for the Stonington High School boys' soccer team.

The loss of a quality senior class from a Class M state tournament semifinal team didn't lower its goals for this season.

The Bears remain in pursuit of championship banners.

With a 3-0 shutout of East Lyme on Monday, Stonington is a win or tie away from clinching outright their second straight Eastern Connecticut Conference Division I title. Stonington (10-0-2, 4-0-1) secured at least a tie by beating the Vikings (7-3-2, 4-1-1) and can finish atop the standings with a win or tie over Woodstock Academy at home on Saturday.

"We're excited," Stonington coach Paul deCastro said. "But, to be honest, we have good players in all of our classes, especially sophomore, junior, senior class. We have really high expectations. We expected to be here. We're hopeful that we can keep playing well. Our goal is to keep playing soccer until late November."

Earlier this season, the two teams fought to a 2-2 tie.

But the Vikings showed up on Monday with an undermanned team after losing starting forwards Cooper Pazzaglia, who scored two goals against the Bears on Sept. 26 and had 12 goals overall, and playmaker Matt Tapia to season-ending injuries.

East Lyme coach Paul Christensen switched to a 4-5-1 lineup to try to stay close and hoped to eventually sneak one in along the way. His strategy worked for awhile as the score remained deadlocked until just over 16 minutes into the second half.

If not for East Lyme goalie Owen Brown's spectacular play, Stonington would have lit up the scoreboard earlier than it did. Brown finished with 11 saves.

"(Owen) was tremendous," Christensen said. "He played a really good game. I'm proud of the guys for the way they played. They played really hard. They were in the game for the majority of it and we didn't lose it until the end. They had their chances and that's all you can ask for given the adversity that we faced."

The Bears built their attack through the midfield and dominated possession, forcing the Vikings back on their heels. When crafty senior Ty Fidrych had the ball, good things usually happened. Sophomore Samuel Montalto nearly wore out his cleats firing shots at the East Lyme goal.

The breakthrough goal finally came with 23 minutes, 38 seconds remaining.

Sophomore William deCastro collected a pass from Fidrych and blasted a shot from about 30 yards that sailed over Brown's head to give the Bears a 1-0 lead.

"I kind of knew I was close enough to the goal to hit it," deCastro said. "I glanced up for a sec and let it rip. I guess every once in a while, you can get lucky. That was awesome."

Coach deCastro said of the significance of his son's goal: "You could feel the game change a little bit. Our confidence grew and they knew that they weren't going to get a lot of chances, so the first goal was huge."

deCastro's icebreaker lifted the pressure off the Bears, who scored again about two minutes later. Senior George Limberakis headed home a short cross from sophomore William Sawin.

Sophomore Drew Johnson completed the scoring by poking in the ball from the doorstep. Sawin was credited with the assist.

It's a good sign that Stonington's goals came from three different sources not named Montalto and Fidrych.

"You always see Montalto and Fidrych do everything and today it was deCastro, Limberakis and (Johnson), three names that you rarely see in the score column," coach deCastro said. "That's great confidence for our team that there's other guys that can chip in, too. I'm really happy for those other guys."

The Bears aren't finished yet.

They can accomplish one of their championship goals by knocking off Woodstock.

"We've just got to take care of business against Woodstock on Saturday," William deCastro said. "Hopefully, we can have the whole thing to ourselves."

g.keefe@theday.com