Only a day after suffering a gut-wrenching overtime loss to undefeated Peninsula High School, the varsity lacrosse team responded with a bang, crushing league foe St. Francis (3-5 overall, 0-4 in Mission League) 17-4 on Saturday night to get its first home win of the season.

After a heroic second-half effort to keep the Wolverines alive in Friday night’s game, goalie Troy Hattler ’17 continued the momentum in Saturday’s matchup. By only conceding four goals to the Golden Knights, Hattler set a new varsity career-low for goals allowed in a match, breaking his previous best mark of five goals in a win over Oaks Christian on March 13th.

Because the 2014-15 lacrosse season is St. Francis’ first as a member of the Mission League, this was the first ever varsity meeting between the two schools. After dropping their first three home games of the season to Loyola, Palos Verdes, and Peninsula, the Wolverines gave the Golden Knights no life in Saturday’s matchup, dominating early and often to get a key Mission League win and end their losing slide on Ted Slavin Field.

Harvard-Westlake (5-3 overall, 2-1 in Mission League) will have a much more difficult task next week, hosting Crespi (3-4 overall, 2-1 in league) on Tuesday at 5:45 p.m. The Wolverines and the Celts met three times last season, and the three meetings were decided by a combined four goals, culminating in eight-seeded Crespi stunning top-seeded Harvard-Westlake 9-7 at Ted Slavin Field in the second round of the CIF Southern Section Northern Division playoffs. The Wolverines (currently ranked 11th in the division by LaxPower’s computer system) will be hungry for revenge on the Celts (ranked 9th by LaxPower), as this will be the teams’ first meeting since the May 2014 playoff upset.

The game will also be live-streamed by HWTV at the following link:

http://new.livestream.com/HWTVSchool