No. 2 John Carroll’s offense is still going gangbusters five games into the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference season.

The Patriots are averaging six goals per game, and although they didn’t match that lofty mark when they met third-ranked Archbishop Curley on Wednesday afternoon, they still were robust enough to emerge with a 4-2 victory.

Considering that the Patriots’ defense had only allowed four goals coming into the battle with the Friars, that unit also deserves a ton of credit.

Put those two things together and it’s easy to figure out why John Carroll (4-0-1) shares the conference top spot with No. 1 Calvert Hall, a 3-0 winner over Boys’ Latin on Wednesday.The Cardinals and the Patriots are deadlocked with 13 points, three more than runner-up and fourth-ranked Loyola Blakefield.

Curley (4-2, 3-1 conference) now trails the Dons by a point after Wednesday’s loss to John Carroll, a game that started with fireworks from the get-go when junior forward Joshua Petty headed in a perfect cross from senior forward Luke Mejia in the second minute.

The Patriots then exerted more pressure, barely missing an opportunity to double their lead when Petty smoked a shot off the crossbar and Curley sophomore back Nick Lentz cleared a ball that was dangerously close to the goal line.

Meanwhile, after a John Carroll foul in the penalty area, Curley tied the score with 9:17 left on senior Brady Geho’s well-struck penalty kick for his team-leading eighth goal of the season.

Although John Carroll had created more opportunities and only had a halftime deadlock to show for it, the offense perked up considerably in the second half when junior Austin Hoffman sliced a rebound into the net for a 2-1 lead in the 42nd minute to start a 3-0 run.

Curley junior keeper Joe Yakim did his best to stop the onslaught, making one of his game-high 12 saves after John Carroll senior midfielder Ryan Skandalis rifled a shot off the crossbar.

Shortly after that, junior defender Andrew Denard found junior forward Christian Rugel, who assisted senior Cameron Tolson to up the Patriots’ advantage to 3-1.

Three minutes later, Skandalis converted Petty’s pretty pass to balloon the cushion to 4-1 with 25 minutes remaining in regulation.

Tolson narrowly missed increasing the margin to 5-1 and the Friars made the most of the opportunity to cut the deficit to 4-2 on junior forward Tristan Brannock’s header from senior back Trey Magnaye.

”We need to clean that up a little bit,” John Carroll coach Jim Fendryk said. “If we capitalize there, we’re up, 5-1. Instead, they score and it’s 4-2 — game on.”

Nevertheless, with a slew of Patriot defenders — senior Mathis Mingle and juniors Connor Ellis, Eddie Smith, CJ Supan and Tolson — sandwiching the 6-foot-3, 190-pound Geho, Curley’s biggest threat was mostly neutralized by the three center-back alignment.

”We had guys in front of him to block the passing lanes to his feet and guys in the back to prevent him from getting balls in the air,” Fendryk said.

While that took care of the defense, the John Carroll offense was humming along.

”We have a lot of guys who have been playing together for a long time,” Skandalis said. “We have phenomenal chemistry.”

And the Patriots showed no let-up when attacking the goal.

“We kept peppering them,” Petty said.

Curley coach Barry Stitz tipped his hat to John Carroll.

”They were clearly the better team.” he said. “You have to expect that Brady will get special attention. We’re not surprised by the result, and if we don’t change our ways, we’ll fall behind.”

NO. 2 JOHN CARROLL 4, NO. 3 ARCHBISHOP CURLEY 2

JC 1 3 — 4

AC 1 1 — 2

Goals: JC-Joshua Petty, Ryan  Skandalis, Austin Hoffman, Cameron Tolson; AC-Brady Geho, Tristan Brannock.

Assists: JC-Luke Mejia, Christian Rugel, Joshua Petty; AC-Trey Magnaye.

Saves: JC-Tyler Mezzadra 5; AC-Joe Yakim 12.