Rebuilding St. Francis Reloads With 3-0 Victory Over Westlake

After graduating nine starters, St. Francis High’s boys’ soccer team was expected to struggle this season while rebuilding a squad that advanced to the Southern Section Division IV semifinals last season.

However, plenty of talent remains. The Golden Knights proved they still rank among the region’s elite teams with a 3-0 victory over Westlake on Friday night in a pool-play game of the Burroughs tournament at St. Francis.

“We’ve had a lot of success in our program over the years, so people realize it and come to school here,” said St. Francis Coach Glen Appels, whose teams have reached the playoffs 12 of the last 13 years.

“Kids want to play for our team. Soccer is taken seriously at this school. From the administration to the maintenance crew, everybody pitches in. There’s a lot of tradition here.”

Knowing St. Francis (1-1) had a high-powered offense, Westlake Coach Bill Propster chose to play with only three defenders, hoping that playing with three forwards would create more scoring chances and take pressure off his defense.

The plan worked in a 5-0 victory over Oak Park earlier in the week, but not this time.

St. Francis, after failing to score despite 27 shots in a 1-0 loss to Crescenta Valley on Thursday, unleashed 22 shots and held Westlake (1-1) to seven shots.

After poor finishing and offsides penalties kept the Golden Knights from scoring in the first half, they scored three goals in six minutes.

Alex Mesrobian scored in the 47th minute, Geoff Pogue in the 51st and Luke Postlewaite in the 52nd. Although St. Francis dominated play, Westlake had many scoring opportunities. Brent Hoyer hit the post in the first half, Eric Brin had two shots stopped by diving saves by goalkeeper Sean O’Connor, and Federico Rodriguez beat O’Connor late in the game but defender Donovan Schuil cleared the ball before it crossed the goal line.

“If we capitalized on our opportunities, it’s a different game,” Propster said. “We found out where we stand today. A lot of it is my fault. We didn’t have a good practice this week. We played worse today than we did in practice.”