La Canada Wins Tournament Title : High school soccer: Spartans aggressive in 4-0 championship victory over Harvard-Westlake.

La Canada High used two goals by forward Josh Henderson and aggressive play to overwhelm Harvard-Westlake, 4-0, Thursday night in the championship of the 18th annual La Canada tournament.

“It’s our field and our tournament,” said La Canada Coach Lou Bilowitz, whose team has lost only 12 games in the past seven years and made it to the Southern Section Division IV semifinals last winter.

“The team played with pride and they weren’t going to let anyone beat them here.”

Henderson, the Spartans’ leading scorer with 12 goals, opened the scoring 16 minutes into the match when he rose out of a pack of players in front of the Harvard-Westlake goal and headed a crossing pass over Wolverine goaltender Mike Young.

La Canada’s hustling midfielders took over from there, utilizing superior height and speed.

The Spartans pounced on virtually every loose ball, flustering Harvard-Westlake into errant passes and sloppy ball-handling--especially in the air.

“They owned the midfield,” said Harvard-Westlake Coach Rick Commons, whose team competes in Division III. “I told our guys at halftime to play it on the ground because (La Canada is) very good in the air.

“They are a highly disciplined, impressive squad and they counterattack better than any team I’ve coached against.”

Transition was indeed key for La Canada (8-0).

Time and time again, Harvard-Westlake (5-1-1) sent the ball downfield only to find itself on the defensive seconds later.

“We have a great defense and it really allowed our offense to move forward quickly,” Bilowitz said. “We play two defensive midfielders (out of four) and we send one forward on the attack, but it’s a different one each time.

“That makes it hard to mark them and several times the referee even said he had to count the number of players to make sure we had 11 on the field.”

La Canada stopper Gaston Haupert scored the Spartans’ second goal midway through the first half after a Harvard-Westlake clearing attempt failed and left him with the ball 40 yards in front of the Wolverines’ goal.

Haupert boomed a low, skidding kick that found its way through a maze of players and into the net.

The Spartans increased their lead to 3-0 at the intermission when midfielder Chris Sproule headed in a free kick by Chris Sawicki from 10 feet.

In the second half, Henderson scored his second goal on a breakaway for the final margin.

The senior was shadowed all night by Wolverine defenders but was able to break free nonetheless.

“We got impatient and tried to give (Henderson) too many balls,” Bilowitz said. “Too many times we looked for him when there were two guys on him, but he got his chances nonetheless.”