TUSTIN – The St. Margaret’s boys lacrosse team sits alone atop the Orange County lacrosse throne again.
The Tartans, who entered the playoffs as the third seed, capped their run with a 14-9 victory over JSerra on Wednesday night at Tustin High.
St. Margaret’s will face Palos Verdes in the Southern Section final on Saturday afternoon at Mira Costa High of Manhattan Beach.
The Tartans won the county and section final in 2013.
“I think this is more special for the seniors,” senior Patrick Fallon said. “The team has really come together this year. We’ve had a lot more leadership and we just want to compete and we want to win.”
The Tartans fell behind, 3-1, for the second consecutive game, but then scored four consecutive goals, two from Kevin Cox and solo goals from Fernando Delgado and Sam Harnisch to take a 5-3 lead.
They wouldn’t relinquish the lead for the remainder of the first half, taking a 7-5 lead into halftime.
The Tartans opened the second half with three consecutive goals and outscored JSerra, 5-1, to take an 11-6 lead.
JSerra then scored three consecutive goals, but the Tartans scored the final three goals (two from Erik Suh and another from Harnisch) to put the game away.
“This was tough,” St. Margaret’s coach Glen Miles said. “JSerra played outstanding. It was more of a scramble defensively.”
Harnisch led the Tartans with five goals. Suh added three goals.
“We think that we worked very hard,” Fallon said.
James Yanes, Jake Schleppy, Logan Olmstead and Yuta Murata were keys to the JSerra offense.
The Tartans knocked off second-seeded Corona del Mar in the semifinals.
Fallon said the Tartans used that as a bit of motivation. Miles agreed.
“We were confident that we had as good a chance as anybody to win,” Miles said. “We did use that as motivation.”
The teams met earlier this year with St. Margaret’s winning 12-7.
Contact the writer: dcalhoun@ocregister.com