On Thursday night, cross-town rivals met for the second and final time this regular, as the McCracken County Lady Mustangs headed to Jetton Field to take on the Paducah Tilghman Lady Tornado. In another busy night for McCracken’s offense, they’d pick up their second win by way of the mercy rule this week, taking down Tilghman by a final score of 8-0.
The Lady Mustangs were on the attack early, with Maddy Ledgerwood taking just over four minutes to break onto the scoreboard, scoring her first of four goals to give the visitors the quick lead. After goal number two of the night for the junior came another four minutes later, Maddy Ault would also find the back of the net to make it 3-0 with sixteen minutes passed.
While the Lady Tornado would hold some spells of possession outside of their own end as the half rolled along, they wouldn’t be able to keep McCracken at bay for very long. Before the half was out, a quick pair of close range goals for KK Tynes would extend the deficit to five, before Ana Mendoza struck with less than a minute to play, giving the Lady Mustangs a comfortable 6-0 lead to take into halftime.
“The girls were all about spreading the ball around today, being unselfish on offense,” McCracken County head coach Mike Lane said, following the win. “They did what they were supposed to, and that’s all I can ask of them.”
Coming out of halftime, while plenty of substitutes initially took the field for McCracken, it wouldn’t take long for the starters to come back out and put the game of ice. Specifically, Ledgerwood’s final two goals of the evening would come in quick succession, securing a key district win for the Lady Mustangs with 24 minutes to spare, 8-0.
“We did a good job of moving the ball around, we’ve been working hard on it in practice, and it’s really starting to come together for us in the way we want it to,” Lane said. “It’s a good win, we were able to get the whole team involved, we utilized our bench, and that’s good for us moving forward.”
With district play in the books, and a postseason matchup with the Lady Tornado set down the line, the Lady Mustangs now turn their attention to a challenging string of games to close out their regular season. Starting with a matchup against Henderson County this Saturday, the Lady Mustangs will then face another First Region contender in Calloway County, before taking on Madisonville-North Hopkins, and finally shuttering their schedule against Murray.
“You want to peak at the right time in a season, and hopefully we’re hitting our peak now,” Lane concluded. “We’ve still got some tough opponents to play, we’ll just have to see how things play out...We’ve just got to stay together, keep playing as a team, and just stick to what we’ve been doing well for these last few games.”
Kick-off between the Lady Mustangs and Lady Colonels is set for 11:30 a.m. this Saturday at Henderson County.