Heritage's soccer teams took care of business Wednesday with a pair of shutouts over Fayette County. The girls mercy-ruled the Tigers 10-0 with 13:23 of the game left to play while the boys handled their counterparts 2-0 in the nightcap.
Girls: Heritage 10, Fayette County 0
Faith Shelton led a barrage of scoring with a hat trick, Ray Brown and Mady Carter each added a pair of goals and the Lady Patriots didn't even use more than a quarter of the allotted time to pick up the easy non-region win.
Sara Boggus, Kaley Wells and Jessica Walker each chipped with a goal as head coach Chad Suddeth gave some of his defensive players an opportunity to move forward and get into the offensive action. Carter, Heritage's goal keeper and one of its captains stood out as the most obvious beneficiary of her team building a lead and controlling the game with her two goals.
"We pulled Mady out of the box and threw her a bone," Suddeth said. "We mixed a lot of girl in there -- moved a lot of girls around and a lot of them responded so that was good."
Heritage jumped out to a quick lead with two goals from Shelton. Brown took over next with both of her goals before Shelton made it 5-0 before halftime.
With the game in hand early and nothing really left in doubt other than how long it would take to get to 10, the second half went much like the first. After assisting on Brown's first goal, Boggus added a goal before Carter, Wells then Carter again made it 9-0. Walker cleaned things up shortly after to give her team the rest of the night off.
"We got the reserves some live action and experience that will help them later on," Suddeth said. "We were a little sloppy in the first half but we really got after it in the second."
After an up-and-down week, an easy win was just what the doctor ordered. Suddeth was especially pleased his team didn't waste an opportunity to handle business.
"I told the girls, the great teams play up every night regardless of whether its an inferior team out of region," Suddeth said. "Can we do that? I thought we did today. I was pleased with the focus, the work rate and all of those intangible things. That's what's important in a game like this."
Boys: Heritage 2, Fayette County 0
After winning two close home games in which they controlled only to need penalty kicks and a late rally a over the past two weeks, the Patriots took control from the outset and were really never challenged.
"We didn't expect a super tough match but it was still a good match to work on possession and get reserves in," Heritage coach Brandon Stewart said "While I would have liked to see us score more, I never felt like the game was in question."
In a workmanlike effort, Heritage's boys bucked a recent trend of starting slow and showed quickness and crisp passing early on and throughout the game. Austin Kulp put the Patriots up 1-0 with 21:30 remaining in the first half and Adam North put them up comfortably with a goal just before halftime.
"We finally turned the corner in regards to taking the match to them at home rather than sitting back and letting teams come to us," Stewart said. "That's a good progression for us
The Patriots had several more scoring opportunities through the second half and controlled the middle of the field, essentially giving goal keeper Conner Domaleski the night off.
"It was a good warmup for the Salem match," Stewart said. "We did a great job with possession. We played the ball all over the field well. And I also thought it was good to be able to reward some of our reserves who may not always get minutes in some of these close games. It was good reward for them because they work just as hard as everyone else so I'm glad to get them some quality minutes."
