Daily Journal Boys’ Lacrosse Player of the Year: SHP’s Hampton Galletti

“We gave him our team MVP,” SHP head coach Chris Rotelli said. “Without him, we’re not as successful.”

All of this makes up for the fact that Galletti was named to the All-West Catholic Athletic League second team. His St. Ignatius counterpart, Keoni Johnson, earned first-team honors, but Galletti ended up beating him in the CCS championship game.

“[Galletti] was the best goalie that I saw in CCS and Northern California, in general,” Rotelli said. “The way we do the voting (for WCAL all-league) is far from a perfect system. The All-American vote was probably more accurate. He was the only goalie voted (to the Silicon Valley region for USA Lacrosse).”

When Galletti was a freshman, he was a backup for the defending champion Gators. But instead of moving into the starting lineup, he battled injuries his sophomore season and then battled through injury and playing time last season with a freshman, who has since transferred.

That left the starting goalie spot all Galletti’s for 2025 and he grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

It was not an easy transition. The Gators lost their top defender to injury, so a young defense was being led by a first-year varsity starting goalie in Galletti.

But Galletti was far from inexperienced. A successful club player, he was simply looking for his chance to make his mark with the Gators, and 2025 was that season.

“This was the first year he really got a chance to embrace a starting role,” Rotelli said. “As a goalie, you’re the last line of defense. It was a really young defense (in front of him) this year. Our best defender, Jack Barton, broke his wrist in the fifth game and didn’t play again.

“We had an extremely young defense. [Galletti] was a major reason they were very good. … He really grew up in a big way when he became a starter. I think his confidence really elevated.”

This was not a case of “happy to be here,” either. Galletti ended up starting every game of the season as SHP went 18-6 during the regular season, including a number of games against some of the elite teams in Southern California. As a team, SHP allowed an average of 5.3 goals per game. Against teams in the CCS, that goal against average dropped to 4.5.

“He averaged 14 to 15 saves per game,” Rotelli said. “I’ve seen him be that good before, but never that consistently. This year, he was great consistently.”

Despite the team’s success, there was one thing eluding this year’s senior class — a win over St. Ignatius. Since beating the Wildcats for the 2021 CCS title, St. Ignatius rebounded by winning the 2022, ’23 and ’24 CCS crowns, beating SHP each time.

Additionally, the Gators hadn’t beaten the Wildcats in either the regular season or the WCAL tournament and had lost 11 straight to SI, which is ranked No. 1 in the state and No. 10 in the nation by MaxPreps.com.

SHP had lost to SI 11-8 during the regular season and fell 12-7 in the WCAL tournament final. But the Gators cruised into the CCS finals where they faced their nemesis for the fifth straight season.

And this time, it was SHP that came out on top of the Wildcats for the first time since 2021, as the Gators opened up a 4-0 lead on their way to an 8-7 victory.

“We had lost by five goals the week before. … [The CCS championship game] required us to play a nearly perfect game,” Rotelli said. “We went up 4-0. They couldn’t score on Hampton. … We executed a game plan, played a nearly perfect game and Hampton was the main reason.”

The seven goals SI scored were the second-lowest output of the season for the Wildcats and was the only SI loss against CCS competition all season as Galletti stoned the Wildcats, finishing with 17 saves in the CCS final.

“The big moments didn’t really rattle him,” Rotelli said. “He understands where shooters are going to shoot the ball. He does a great job anticipating.

“It was definitely a whole team win, but I think in the last game of his senior year, [Galletti] and his classmates had never beaten SI. They all stepped up and played as well as they possibly could.”