For the past three seasons, St. Augustine High School has been the most dominant and accomplished boys soccer program in San Diego County.

The three-time reigning Open Division champions entered this year’s postseason as the tournament’s No.3 overall seed.

On a wet Thursday afternoon, St. Augustine’s pursuit of a fourth consecutive Open Division title rolled along. The Saints defeated No. 6 Eastlake 4-0 to advance to the CIF San Diego Section’s Open semifinals. The first round is a two-leg affair; St. Augustine won the first match 5-1, finishing with a 9-1 aggregate score.

The Saints advance to face the winner between No. 2 Torrey Pines and No. 7 Helix.

“Even when you’re up 5-1 coming into the match, you still don’t feel safe,” St. Augustine coach Brendan Johnson said. “To get those early goals, it really opened the game up for us.”

While St. Augustine dominated the opener, Johnston’s group still applied pressure early and often. Dominic Calero opened the scoring in the seventh minute, netting a goal just inside the far post from 14 yards out.

“Dominic did a nice job of letting that ball just roll by him and finishing it to the far post,” said Johnston. “The guys did a good job of finishing the chances that we had today.”

The Saints struck again 10 minutes later, this time off a set piece. After being awarded a corner, Kirin Beckhaus stepped up and crossed a ball to the far post in the direction of Carson Prahl, who left his feet and buried a shot into the bottom right corner of the net.

“We’ve worked on those balls to the back post a lot,” said Prahl, “I just stuck my knee out. I didn’t know I was going to get a piece of it or anything, but I’ll take it. A goal is a goal.”

A goal by Michael Gonzalez in the 20th minute pushed the Saints’ lead to 3-0. Then Prahl struck again in the 24th, capping the scoring.

“I think we’ve got a ton of momentum right now,” Prahl said. “We’ve come in and scored a lot of goals every game, and while we know our next game is going to be tough, we know what’s at stake, and we are ready for the challenge. We want to go out and win another championship.”