Four goals in the first half, four goals in the second half.
Wind at their backs, wind in their faces, it didn’t matter for the Capital City Lady Cavaliers.
“We’ve been harping in practice about keeping the ball down as much as possible,” Capital City coach Travis Cairer said Tuesday night after the Lady Cavaliers defeated the Jefferson City Lady Jays 8-1 in Central Missouri Activities Conference soccer action at Capital City High School.
“The wind has been chaotic in the past few games and we’ve had to focus even more on keeping it on the ground. The wind doesn’t do a ton against you if you keep it down.”
Playing into the wind at the start, Capital City was able to score three goals in the first eight minutes.
“They are talented, the problems they impose and the problems they impose on you, make it difficult,” Jefferson City coach Scott Blake said.
One of the main focuses for the Lady Cavaliers is to get off to good starts.
“We want good efforts in the first 10 minutes and we’ve been getting those,” Cairer said.
Amaura Austell, who scored four times in a win Saturday against Republic, got Capital City on the board less than two minutes into Tuesday night’s contest.
“She’s been playing well,” Cairer said. “We’ve moved her up the field lately and she gets up the sideline pretty well.”
Rylea Sanning made it 2-0 about five minutes later, making a run to the back post to knock in a shot. Georgia Pardalos capped the early spurt with a liner from near the top of the box at the 32:11 mark.
“When we took breaks, they scored,” Blake said.
Jefferson City cut it to 3-1 midway through the first half when Jada Barlow scored off an assist by Emily McMillian.
With a little less than three minutes to go in the half, the two almost combined to score again. But Barlow’s shot rattled off the crossbar.
“Sitting at 3-2 maybe going into halftime, it might have been a little different in the second half,” Blake said.
Capital City made it 4-1 with just :16 remaining in the half when Jefferson City was whistled for a foul in the box. Capital City keeper Natalie Allison came down the length of the field to take the ensuing penalty kick.
Allison is in the rotation of the first five shooters when the Lady Cavaliers go to penalty kicks.
“She’s confident and knows what she’s doing,” Cairer said. “Not that any of the other players couldn’t have done it, but she was the only one in the starting five of PKs that was on the field at the time. So she took it.”
The senior lined a shot into the lower left corner of the net to give the Lady Cavaliers the three-goal lead at intermission.
“We just didn’t play consistently, we had moments, but not enough moments,” Blake said.
Kaylee Loethen extended Capital City’s lead to 5-1 with about 24 minutes remaining. The Lady Cavaliers scored three times in the last 14 minutes, getting goals from Kimber Noble, Mae Krause and Kassi Loethen.
It was a good closing effort from the Lady Cavaliers’ reserves.
“We have girls that deserve to be out there, but they have quality players in front of them,” Cairer said.
Blake said Jefferson City can take some lessons from the game.
“You have to, if you don’t, why play?” he said. “We learned about players, we learned about combinations,.”
Jefferson City (3-2 overall, 0-1 CMAC) is back in action Thursday at home against Sedalia Sacred Heart.
Capital City (6-0) will play today at Southern Boone.
Tuesday’s JV game, limited to one half, ended scoreless between the Lady Cavaliers and Lady Jays.