St. Paul’s Wolves ran wild Saturday night taking a 9-0 victory over the South Lafourche Tarpons in the bi-district round of the playoffs held at Hunter Stadium.

Wolves’ senior Zach Perret and freshman Kannon Otillio registered hat tricks to propel St. Paul’s to victory.

St. Paul’s (20-4), the No. 3 seed, is hosting cross-town district rival Mandeville, the No. 14 seed, tonight in the regional round. Game time is 6 p.m. at Hunter Stadium. Mandeville (18-7-1), advanced taking a 3-0 victory over Byrd on Saturday.

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In Saturday’s bi-district contest, St. Paul’s Seth Hagan put the Wolves up 1-0 in the 10th minute with Wes Lee centering a pass to Hagan to collect the assist.

St. Paul’s controlled the midfield during the majority of the first half, but was unable to finish a number of scoring opportunities until Perret made South Lafourche pay after they committed a foul in the 34th minute. Perret took the penalty kick and drove it home to give the Wolves a 2-0 cushion, which is how the first half ended.

Perret talked about the victory.

“We didn’t get our shots on frame in the first half. In the second half we made better decisions whenever we got to the offensive half. We just made better decisions in the second half and that’s why we had more goals come out of it,” Perret said.

“We made good passes inside and we weren’t greedy sharing the ball,” Perret added.

Eight minutes into the second half, St. Paul’s pushed in a goal with Perret doing the honors off a quality assist from Jake Saltalamacchia to increase the margin to 3-0. Saltalamacchia made a nice dribble move along the right side and found Perret, who had an open look with South Lafourche’s goalkeeper out of net.

Just a minute later, St. Paul’s Adrian McInnis blasted in a goal assisted by Saltalamacchia to boost the lead to 4-0.

The Wolves’ onslaught continued with Perret completing his hat trick getting a ball in goal after deflecting into the net off the Tarpon’s goalkeeper in the 50th minute.

Two minutes later, Hagan notched his second goal assisted by Perret to increase the lead to 6-0.

Otillio made his presence felt netting his first of his three initial varsity goals for the Wolves.

Otillio tallied an unassisted goal from about 18 yards out on the left corner to make it 7-0 in the 60th minute.

Otillio tallied again in the 66th minute assisted by Jordan Daigle and he closed out the Wolves scoring netting his third goal unassisted in the 75th minute.

Otillio said he didn’t expect the scoring outburt.

“Those are my first varsity goals, and getting a hat trick is pretty neat. They didn’t pressure us much in the second half. I’m happy with the goals,” Otillio said.

St. Paul’s coach Sean Moser talked about taking better shots in the second half helping make the difference.

“Of 10 shots in the first half, six of them went over the net. We did a little thing if you shoot the ball over the net, you do five pushups after your shot,” Moser said.

“In the second half, pretty much everything was on target. We scored some nice goals in the second half and we put them away,” Moser added.

St. Paul’s was the aggressor from the outset and the Wolves controlled the ball and the tempo along with the Wolves’ defense being solid recording the shutout.

“They were only playing with one forward up top in the first half. It was just a matter of us trying to break them down. I think they defended a little more smartly in the first half. They were diving in a little too much in the second half and that’s when we were able to get around them,” Moser added.

William Barnett played the first half in goal for the Wolves and Bryan Bowers played the second half to combine for the shutout. Moser named Taylor Price as the Wolves’ top defender.

South Lafourche first-year coach Michael Melancon talked about his team changing strategy in the second half after keeping the game close in the first half dropping back a number of players on defense.

“My team really believed they could play with them (St. Paul’s) after the first half, which I didn’t agree with. At the same time, my seniors said they wanted to go into a formation we normally play to see if we could compete instead of dropping eight back like we did in the first half,” Melancon said.

“We quickly found out that St. Paul’s deserved their No. 3 ranking in the state and it didn’t take long for our guys to realize that we needed to drop back and play defense instead of doing what we were doing,” Melancon added.

Melancon credited St. Paul’s with displaying great sportsmanship and his team enjoyed the visit.

“By far, St. Paul’s is the best team we have faced. Nothing in our district comes close to them talent wise. We played in the Fontainebleau Tournament and saw some decent teams in there, but none of them moved the ball the way St. Paul’s did. It’s artwork, the way they move the ball. They did a great job,” said the South Lafourche coach.