St. Francis soccer can’t hold on against Harvard-Westlake
LA CAÑADA — When it took on Harvard-Westlake Wednesday afternoon, the St. Francis High soccer team was looking to keep its CIF Southern Section playoff hopes alive.
With Loyola having already secured the Mission League championship, there was a group of four teams within four points of one another jostling for the final three guaranteed postseason spots from the league.
Although the Golden Knights lost at home against Harvard-Westlake, 3-1, giving up three consecutive goals, the team’s playoff aspirations weren’t lost as well.
Sherman Oaks Notre Dame (5-6-1 in league) came into Wednesday tied with Harvard-Westlake (7-8-2, 6-4-1 in league) for the fourth spot in league, three points behind St. Francis (12-9-2, 6-5-1). However, Notre Dame lost its final league game against Loyola, 4-2, to put the Golden Knights into the postseason.
“Harvard-Westlake and Crespi have to play Thursday, so that is for second and third place,” St. Francis coach Glen Appels said. “So we are going to get fourth place.
“We would have liked to have won today and be able to move up in league, but we weren’t able to do that.”
It was a six-minute stretch in the second half where the Wolverines overcame a one-goal deficit, scoring two goals to take the lead, that led to St. Francis’ undoing.
“We know that Harvard-Westlake is a dangerous team and sometimes we have these lapses that can hurt us,” said Appels, whose squad lost to the Wolverines, 6-0, on Jan. 19. “We knew that even though we were up by one goal, we weren’t comfortable at that moment.
“Our season really comes down to the games where we don’t make obvious mistakes and we finish our chances, we usually do well. But today we did makes some mistakes and we didn’t finish some of those chances.”
It was a tight contest in the first half with Harvard-Westlake generating the lion’s share of scoring opportunities.
However, the Golden Knights had a great opportunity in the 22nd minute when Carlos Monserratt was dragged down in the penalty area and St. Francis was awarded a penalty kick. Nick Maldonado took the shot and tried to beat the keeper low and to his left, but Eli Yadidi guessed right and batted the shot away.
After a scoreless first half, the Golden Knights were given another penalty opportunity in the 43rd minute. This time, Sebastyan Enriquez made good on the chance, beating Yadidi low and to his left.
The lead lasted until the 57th minute when Wolverine Alec Katz scored on an assist from Langston Holly to knot the score at 1.
Harvard-Westlake took a 2-1 lead just six minutes later on a goal by Holly on a St. Francis defensive breakdown.
“It was a good game, but they had their chances and they put them in,” Enriquez said. “We had some chances, but we just couldn’t get them in.”
Jacob Neuman added a goal in the 77th minute for Harvard-Westlake.
Twitter: @jefftsports
