The girls soccer squad at Hopkins County Central had it going offensively Thursday night as the Lady Storm hosted Todd County Central and Emma Vandiver led the 6-1 victory with a hat trick and an assist. Hopkins Central continues to improve in the young season after shutting out Webster earlier in the week.
“I feel like we’re playing better as a team,” Vandiver said. “Our communication (Thursday) has been much better than it has been.”
The Lady Storm’s head coach, Ben Lutz, has also seen the improvement from the coach’s box.
“It was a good team win (Thursday),” Lutz said. “We switched up formations a little bit and help us utilize our wide players more. The first couple of games, we didn’t really have a lot of offensive options and we’ve been kind of harping on them to be combining with each other, have some more 1-2 passes, playing balls in space and things like that. And ultimately taking shots, like if you don’t shoot, you don’t score.”
Along with Vandiver, Briley Gamblin took Lutz’s advice of shooting the ball as she found the back of the net twice Thursday night and recorded an assist. Karoline Riddle had a goal and an assist and Kaylee Rice recorded an assist.
“Emma was our leading goal scorer last year so it’s great to see her getting going scoring again,” Lutz said. “I’m also glad to see Briley step up and get two goals, one on each foot.”
Despite Hopkins Central fielding a young team with only a couple of substitutes available, the Lady Storm showed Thursday that they are able to play the team game and move the ball around effectively on the attack.
“When we went up to Henderson for the first game of the season, we had eight players who had never started varsity,” Lutz said. “We’re young and inexperienced but you only gain experience through playing so we’re still going through some growing pains, but I like where we’re headed, I’m proud of them (Thursday), they never took their foot off the gas.”
As for Todd County Central, the Lady Rebel’s coach, Tony Caracciolo, saw good things from goalkeeper Molly Cumbee as she bailed her team out of trouble multiple times throughout the match and kept it from ending early via the mercy rule.
“Molly had a great game in net for us,” Carcciolo said. “She had a lot of saves, took some hits, but got back up and kept on going.”
Vandiver got the scoring started in the fifth minute followed by Riddle finding the back of the net and Vandiver assisting 10 minutes later to put the Lady Storm up 2-0. Mia Vasquez prevented Todd County Central from getting shutout with a goal in the 27th minute, but Gamblin fired a rocket from about 20 yards out that found the back of the net to put the Lady Storm ahead 3-1 going into halftime.
After 20 minutes of action in the second half, Gamblin was at the right place at the right time to put away a rebound and nine minutes later, Vandiver put a shot in from close range but not without some controversy as the Hopkins Central coaching staff and fans claimed they saw her get shoved into the goal. The officials did not see it happen and no penalty was assessed even after a short conference at mid-field before play resumed. The Lady Storm kept their composure however and Vandiver sealed the deal with her third goal with 10 minutes to play.
Hopkins Central will be traveling to Ohio County on Tuesday before returning home to host Murray on Thursday. Meanwhile Todd County Central will be on the road next week as the Lady Rebels will be in Russellville Tuesday and Caldwell County on Thursday.
