Stellar work between the posts combined with an efficient performance on offense propelled the Eastside Catholic Crusaders boys lacrosse team to a convincing victory against the O’Dea Fighting Irish.

Eastside Catholic, which outscored O’Dea 8-0 in the first half, cruised to a 15-3 victory against the Fighting Irish on April 14 in Sammamish. The Crusaders improved their overall record to 7-2 with the win. Eastside Catholic head coach Chuck Goodman credited goalie Josh Matte for blocking an onslaught of shot attempts throughout the game.

“He bailed us out of a couple of man down situations and got a couple of stops that maybe he shouldn’t have,” Goodman said.“He just stepped up in a really major way for us.”

Goodman was also pleased with the effort of defender Justin Prukop against O’Dea.

“Justin had an outstanding game. We gave him a pretty big assignment of guarding their No. 1 midfielder. He did a really nice job covering him and blanketing him nicely. He had some really nice checks and the rest of the defense did a really nice job of sticking to their assignments and covering the way we needed to,” Goodman said.

Despite the lopsided victory, the Crusaders played with maximum effort throughout the duration of the contest.

“We preach in practice the idea of playing at game speed all the time. There is no such thing as an easy day, there are no easy days,” Goodman said. “We always try to get the guys to play full speed, full intensity all the time and I think they really did that tonight.”