SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO — Prior to its bye last week, the Laguna Hills football team squandered a first-half lead in its lone loss of the season.
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The Hawks held onto its first-half lead Friday night for a 23-15 win over St. Margaret’s at St. Margaret’s Episcopal School.
Laguna Hills (4-1) fell to Irvine in the final minute two weeks ago after leading at halftime. The Hawks went back to the basics during their bye week and made sure their performance wouldn’t repeat itself.
“We had to be more physical against the run on defense and I thought we did a really good job of shutting down their run game tonight,” Laguna Hills coach John Lester said. “And we did it with two guys starting their first game on the defensive line. We went back to working on our foundation and making sure that we were solid in what we were doing.”
A key reason Laguna Hills won Friday is that it converted third downs to extend drives and St. Margaret’s (4-1) did not. St. Margaret’s got into the redzone three times and converted none of its three fourth down attempts. Two of the fourth down stops for Laguna Hills’ defense were sacks as well.
Conversely, Laguna Hills converted six third-and-long plays to move the ball and take time off the clock. Hawks quarterback Jaxson Vanderbeek converted two third downs with long run plays and converted one on an 18-yard pass to Nate Medina.
“Our last game we spent a lot of time on defense all night,” Lester said. “We did a much better job sustaining drives and Jaxson Vanderbeek did a great job converting third downs. We did a great job on defense all night. Getting those fourth down stops was huge.”
Vanderbeek completed 12 of 17 passes for 131 yards with a touchdown and ran for 66 yards with a touchdown.
“We had a lot of receivers get touches for us tonight,” Vanderbeek said. “It was a team effort tonight and I’m proud of my boys.”
Laguna Hills’ defense had four sacks for a total of 20 yards lost. Vinny Bresnahan had two sacks while James Gerlach and Blake Imsande each added one.
After its first fourth down stop of the game, Laguna Hills went on an 11-play, 83-yard scoring drive capped by a 2-yard touchdown run by Drew Meyers to give the Hawks a 6-0 lead. Meyers ran for 86 yards on 22 carries.
Vanderbeek ran for a 1-yard touchdown on a quarterback sneak to extend Laguna Hills’ lead to 13-0 just before halftime.
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The Hawks went on an 11-play, 69-yard touchdown drive in their first possession of the second half. Vanderbeek threw a 22-yard touchdown pass to Jack Medvene for his first career touchdown reception.
Medvene made a 31-yard field goal with three minutes left in the game to give the Hawks a 23-7 lead, which ended up being a necessary cushion for Laguna Hills.
St. Margaret’s scored on two long touchdown passes in the fourth quarter. Kai Letcher threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to Jack Kleinhanzl early in the quarter to cut the Hawks’ lead to 20-7.
In the final minute, Letcher connected with Kleinhanzl again for a 41-yard touchdown pass. Letcher connected with Charlie Allen for the 2-point conversion to make the score 23-15.
Kleinhanzl caught four passes for 86 yards with two touchdowns. Sam Orellana, who had a school-record five touchdowns in his last game, ran for 124 yards on 22 carries.
Sawyer Collins had 1½ sacks for St. Margaret’s. Griffin Illenberger had a sack and Hao Chang teamed up with Collins for a sack.
Dylan Burnett had an interception for Laguna Hills on a third down when St. Margaret’s was driving into Laguna Hills’ territory.
“It felt like all night the difference was on third and fourth down,” St. Margaret’s coach Dan O’Shea said. “Defensively, we could not get off the field on third down. Our inability to convert in the redzone and our inability to get off the field, that was the game.”
Laguna Hills opens Iota League play on Friday, Oct. 2, against Kennedy. The Hawks have not won a league game since 2023 in the Pacific Coast League.
St. Margaret’s will open Kappa League play on the road against Canyon on Thursday, Oct. 1.