Madison Academy scored four first-half goals to cruise to an easy 5-0 victory over Westminster Christian Tuesday night in the first round of the Class 1A-4A state playoffs.
The win was the fifth straight for the Lady Mustangs, who improved to 15-1 overall.
“We played well tonight,” said Madison Academy head coach Rory Schroeder. “It has been awhile since we’ve played as well as we did tonight.
“We need to finish a little more. I know we walked out with five (goals), but we need to finish a little bit more.”
Madison Academy, ranked second in the state, will face top-ranked Guntersville in the second round Saturday.
Casey Rigdon gave Madison Academy an early lead with two goals in the first half. The Mustangs also got scores from Sarah Williams and Jessica Hill to open up a commanding 4-0 lead.
Hill added her second goal of the night six minutes into the second half to cap the scoring.
Halie Loney, Hill and Williams had assists on three of the five Madison Academy goals.
Schroeder was able to rest his starters for the final 20 minutes of the game as Leslie Parrish picked up the shutout of the Wildcats (10-5-1).
“Westminster is always a good team. This is like their seventh or eighth year in a row. They are a good challenge.”
Now the Lady Mustangs must prepare for a showdown with the top-ranked team in the state. Madison Academy already has one win over a top-ranked team this season: the Lady Mustangs beat then-No. 1 Randolph 4-3 at home earlier in the year.
“We’ve got a really tough test Saturday so we have to be ready to play,” Schroeder said. “I feel like we’re not there yet,. I still feel like we’re not a finished product. We still haven’t played our best soccer and we haven’t played a full 80 minutes. We have had some stretches where we haven’t played as well as I would have liked. We still have to aim and try to get better than we are right now.”