Last season, the Madisonville-North Hopkins Lady Maroons won the girls’ 2nd Region soccer tournament and nearly upset Greenwood in the sectional round of play, and they did so without one of Western Kentucky’s best scorers in the lineup. So, with senior Camryn LaGrange returning to join her team for the 2021 season, the Lady Maroons figure to have a shot at repeating as the queens of the region.
The Lady Maroons looked every bit the part of a regional contender Monday evening as they took a 7-1 win over the Christian County Lady Colonels on the pitch at the Stadium of Champions.
However, it was Raelynn Blanford that got things going for the Lady Maroons. The senior scored two goals in the first 4:50 of the match to give Madisonville the early 2-0 lead.
The Lady Maroons struck again at the 15:00 mark when Hannah McKinsey found the net to push the lead out to 3-0.
While it would have been easy for the Lady Colonels to let things fall apart from there, they did not. Christian County battled back and cut the lead to 3-1 when Autumn Bell scored on a corner kick off the foot of Taylor Dunn at the 21:30 mark. The goal appeared to give the Lady Colonels some confidence especially on the defensive end as the Lady Maroons only found the net one more time in the opening half, that coming at 25:00 when Lillie Carmen made it 4-1.
One of the big notes of the first half was that the Lady Colonels had shut out Madisonville scoring machine Camryn LaGrange. However, that trend did not last.
After Christian County’s defense had turned back the Lady Maroons for the first 24 minutes of the second half, LaGrange kicked Madisonville into gear. She scored the first two goals of her senior season in a span of just over six minutes to move the lead out to 6-1.
Raelynn Blanford then closed out the scoring for the night, completing her hat trick at the 76:50 mark to make the score 7-1.
In that first 24 minutes of the second half, the Lady Colonels had some chances to cut into the Madisonville lead but could not find the net. The Christian County defense had a 30 minute stretch in the middle of the match where it clamped down on the defending region champs.
The Lady Colonels got some key defensive minutes from Macy and Zemirah Love during that stretch of the match.
Madisonville opens the season at 1-0, while the Lady Colonels fall to 0-1. Christian County will travel to Lyon County Thursday night. Madisonville hosts Greenwood Tuesday night.
