Lady Mustangs earn 5th straight district championship

LUCASVILLE — The more things change, the more they stay the same, and in the case of the Lynchburg-Clay Lady Mustangs on Thursday night in their Division III SE District Final game against the North Adams Lady Green Devils, it was more of things staying the same.

LCHS are not only district champions for a fifth consecutive year, but they’ve now won 10 district championships in the past 11 seasons, defeating North Adams, 2-0 at Valley High School in Lucasville.

The Lady Mustangs (14-0-4) put the pressure on the Lady Green Devils early on, as they didn’t “slack” on the field. Rather, they had senior Aubrey Slack score the Lady Mustangs’ first goal less than four minutes into the game, and at the 36:25 mark, the senior shot the ball from 12 yards out past the NAHS keeper for the 1-0 lead.

Slack didn’t let up, as she added a second and final goal in the game with 8:08 left in the first half. She was near the keeper in the box and shot the ball past North Adams for a second time, giving LCHS a 2-0 lead, a score that stood until the end of the game.

Neither team scored in the second half, and for the Lady Mustangs, it was due to a strong defensive effort where the defense was relentless, as they were like a brick wall and nothing got past them for the entire 80 minutes of the district final game.

“Again, all the hallelujahs in the world to our back four and all of our defenders in the middle. They just denied — I don’t think [North Adams] got any shots in the second half and just a couple in the first half,” Lynchburg-Clay head coach Dennis West said. “They just are constantly supporting each other and just moving and just do a wonderful job.”

West then spoke about the “good feeling” of winning another district championship and playing North Adams for a second straight year in the tournament.

“It's a good feeling. I think I said after last week’s game, we’ve come to expect it, but the girls just play. They’re just solid,” West said. “I was nervous all day long, because North Adams plays about as tough as anybody on our schedule, and I just didn’t know how we’d respond after last year’s game in the regional tournament, and then this year’s game. They (NAHS) just play hard. Morgan (Hendrickson, head coach) does a great job with the team, and they’re just sound fundamentally.

“We got two great shots from Aubrey Slack, and that turned out to be the difference, because they really did a good job on keeping Jade Massey out of the net.”

In earning the fifth straight district title and 10th out of the past 11 seasons, the dynasty that the Lady Mustangs have built in not only the Southeast District, but in Division III isn’t going unnoticed, with LCHS playing in the regional round and making the Sweet 16 in those same 10 out of the past 11 seasons.

“It just means we’ve got a program that knows what we expect of them. It’s not like starting over again every year,” West said. “It’s hey, you know what we expect, you know what it takes to get there. The incoming freshmen know that they’ve got three groups ahead of them that can tell them and verify that you don’t get there by being lazy. You get there by hard work and being dedicated to what you need to do.

“I’m just happy for the group of them. They played well tonight, and I expect them to do the same thing Tuesday night.”

Speaking of Tuesday night (Oct. 31), the Lady Mustangs will host the other SE District champion, the Fairfield Lady Lions, also of the SHAC and a Highland County rival of LCHS. Fairfield won in overtime on Thursday in Lucasville over Minford by a 2-1 score.

“Well, they’re not somebody we don’t know. It’s still going to be a contest where you really have to play well, because you don’t make it to the district finals with a bad team,” West said. “And we’ll prepare for them, watch some film tomorrow and get ready to battle on Tuesday evening. I just hope we can have the weather. I don’t think it’ll be anything like this. We had great weather tonight, and this is a great facility down here.”

This season, Lynchburg-Clay defeated Fairfield 5-1 in the regular season (Oct. 6) en route to a SHAC championship.

This postseason, the Lady Mustangs have outscored their opponents 18-0 in three games, and they have allowed just seven goals in 18 games played in 2023. LCHS last allowed a goal in the aforementioned Oct. 6 game against Fairfield at FHS, as they are currently on a five-game streak of not allowing a goal.

Lynchburg-Clay is scheduled to face Fairfield on Tuesday, Oct. 31 at 7 p.m. at Zane Trace High School in the Division III Regional Semifinals.

BOX SCORE
NAHS    0 0 — 0
LCHS    2 0 — 2