LC Lady Mustangs defense shuts out Clinton-Massie

DODSONVILLE — For the second consecutive game to start the 2023 season, the Lynchburg-Clay Lady Mustangs shut out their opposition. This time, on Tuesday night, the Lady Mustangs defended their home field with a 4-0 win over a non-conference foe, the Clinton-Massie Lady Falcons.

The Lady Mustangs (2-0) earned the win with the defense leading the charge, as they allowed few shots at goal and kept CMHS away from getting close to the net. One of the top plays in the game was by the defense of LCHS, as senior captain Lainie Lunsford made a strong defensive stop near the goal, with her defense keeping the shutout intact in the second half.

The defense consists of inside defenders junior Olivia Van Fleet and Lunsford — whom Coach Dennis West said are playing “awesome soccer” — and outside defenders senior Samantha Merry and junior Addie Downing.

LC keeper Caitlyn Collins finished with one save in the win.

“Those four have been just rock solid this year, and we’ve been rotating a lot of people in our defensive mid-spot, Jayden Maxfield (junior), Aubrey Slack (junior), and we’ve been just getting a lot of really good play out of them too,” West said. “Then again, we are trying to rotate in some of the freshmen and sophomores as much as we can, and it hasn’t hurt us a bit yet, and that’s comforting.

“We played well. Our defense hasn’t given up a goal in the first two games, against two relatively young teams, but I think we’ve only two or three shots in those two games total, so our defense has been playing really well. We are trying to rotate some of the freshmen in there to give them a spell and we've been getting good play out of all the freshmen.

“The defensive end has made the offensive end really be able to click,” West continued. “We are keeping the ball on the other team's end of the field a good portion of the games, and that’s given us opportunities to score, and we’ve got two or three girls who have stepped up and are getting opportunities. We are going to work on finishing some more.”

As for the offensive display by LCHS on Tuesday, with the team scoring two of their four goals in the first half, they added two more goals in the second half for the four-goal win. In the first two games to open the season, the Lady Mustangs have outscored their opponents 10-0, defeating Georgetown by a 6-0 score last Friday.

In their win over the Lady Falcons, junior Aubrey Slack beat the keeper for the first goal of the game, with 30:23 left on the first-half clock. The LCHS lead turned into a two-goal advantage less than 10 minutes later with senior Autumn Wilkin scoring the goal, as it was assisted by Lunsford and senior captain Jade Massey with 21:06 remaining in the first half.

The second half saw Slack score her second goal of the game off a through ball with the assist by Massey with 33:30 left in regulation. Massey scored the final goal of the game with 13:20 on the scoreboard, beating the keeper for what was her fifth goal of the season for the 4-0 lead.

“Jade scored four goals in our first game against Georgetown and tonight she had a hard time getting the ball in, but toward the end of the game scored that fourth goal for us,” West said. “Autumn is going to score for us, and a lot of the time she’s the person who just happens to be in the right place and the right time, and that’s been good.

“Aubrey, she looked for opportunities tonight and took advantage of them with two big goals to give us some breathing room. The offense is getting there, and the defense, I just hope they keep improving and get more confidence so I can get some more of these other kids in there, and if that happens, we are going to be really good.”  

Next for the Lady Mustangs is a road non-conference game on Thursday, Aug. 17 in Mt. Orab against the Western Brown Lady Broncos with a scheduled start time of 7 p.m., following the conclusion of the boys game, which starts at 5 p.m.

BOX SCORE
CMHS    0 0 — 0
LCHS 2 2 — 4