Hazelwood West Girls Lacrosse Suffers 14-1 Loss to Ladue

After suffering a 22-7 loss to Ladue High on Tuesday, girls varsity lacrosse coach Mike Vaughn said his players couldn’t wait for the rematch on Friday at Wildcat Field.

“The girls were so fired up for this game,” Vaughn said. “They really wanted a chance to prove themselves against this really good Ladue team.”

Unfortunately, the Lady Rams didn’t exactly cooperate with the Hazelwood West gameplan, landing a second-straight lopsided win against the Lady Wildcats, this time 14-1.

“You know, the score looks pretty bad,” Vaughn said. “But the girls are pretty proud of themselves, and they should be.

"We were able to limit them to 14," he said. "Ladue is good enough that they could’ve scored a lot more than that.”

It might seem odd for an opposing coach to say holding Ladue to 14 goals is somehow limiting them. But Vaughn has a point. The Lady Rams (3-0) have won all their games in lopsided fashion this year, and are averaging just under 18 scores a game.

So West’s defensive effort of holding Ladue to "just" 14 scores, really was like a victory for the Lady Wildcats in itself.

“We knew going in that that’s a really good team,” Vaughn said. “So our goal was to improve on how we played the last time we faced them, and we definitely played a whole lot better than we did on Tuesday.”

Junior Krysta Swalley scored the lone Hazelwood West goal on Friday, while five Ladue players tallied scores for the Lady Rams, Parker Harrington led with seven goals. Elena Gresick’s accompanied with three goals and four assists.

But the final outcome in a matchup against a team considered one of the favorites to win a state championship this season, was never really in doubt Friday, nor was it the primary focus for the Lady Wildcats.

“We played our hearts out today,” Vaughn said. “And you can see by the looks on our girls faces, they aren’t upset about losing today.

"We’ll rebound and be ready for tomorrow.”

The West-Ladue matchup was the final game on day one of the Hazelwood West Tournament, which also features Marquette and Parkway South high schools.

Parkway South won the first game of the day, 7-6, over Marquette, and will faced Ladue in the championship game on Saturday at Hazelwood West.

The Lady Wildcats and Marquette faced-off in the tourney’s third place game, also on April 2 at West.

That West-Marquette regular season matchup is scheduled for Thursday, April 7, with a 4:15 p.m. start time, and will also be played at West.