FAYETTEVILLE -- Almost 12 minutes had elapsed off the Razorback Field scoreboard before Lauren Johnson gave Central Arkansas Christian's girls their first goal Monday morning.
The Lady Mustangs didn't need a full minute to score again, and the rout was in progress. Three players scored two goals as CAC captured its fourth consecutive state title and ninth overall with a 7-1 victory over Harding Academy in the Class 3A championship match.
Johnson picked up her goal off a corner kick by Claire Vest, who was named the MVP, with 28:15 remaining in the first half. Johnson then returned the favor with her assist on McKenna Moore's goal 29 seconds later and gave CAC (11-2) a 2-0 cushion.
"We had to step back a bit and get organized," CAC Coach Carter Lambert said. "We did pretty well after that.
"One of the things we did was we respected them a lot. We set back a little bit more than we needed to do and got stretched in the field. There was a lot of space in the midfield. Once we got things a little more compact, we were able to get things going the way we wanted to do."
Harding Academy (12-4-2), a first-year program with only one senior on its roster this spring, did make things interesting near the midway point in the first half. Freshman Abby White, one of six freshmen on the Lady Wildcats' roster, intercepted a pass from a CAC defender and scored to make it a 2-1 match.
CAC, however, picked up two goals in a 66-second span to make it a 4-1 match. Vest used an assist from Moore to score her goal at the 12:34 mark in the first half, then Vest had the assist as Moore scored her second goal with 11:28 before halftime.
"I thought if we could go into halftime trailing 1-0 or 2-1, we would have a chance," said Harding Academy Coach Kevin Ganus, whose team dropped a 6-0 decision to CAC on March 25. "But they are so dangerous. When they score on you once, the next five minutes are so critical and they put two on us.
"We were in trouble at that point. But we're going to learn from this. We have everybody but one player coming back next year. We want to come back."
Madyson Bowman extended CAC's lead to 6-1 before halftime when she scored off a Johnson assist with 4:08 left to play, then scored off a deflection two minutes later. Johnson then finished what she started when she scored off Vest's third assist and forced the sportsmanship rule with 30 minutes remaining.
Sports on 05/21/2019