Patriots blast Burris

The Patriots scored their first goal less than three minutes into the game.
As the chances kept coming, it was only a matter of time before they found the back of the net more consistently.
Lucy Laux tallied her first hat trick of the season and added two assists, and her classmate Alex Bader had her first career multi-goal game as the Jay County High School girls soccer team defeated the Burris Owls, 9-1.
“Took us a couple minutes to get going,” said JCHS coach Giles Laux, whose team moves to 2-1 on the season and travels to Woodburn to play the Woodlan Warriors at 6 p.m. tonight. “We started right off, good ball movement and great hustle.
“Just looked good all around.”
Lucy Laux scored on a breakaway 2 minutes, 43 seconds, into the game, and the Patriots continued to pour on the shots at Burris goalkeeper Taylor Hunt. Jay County finished with 29 shots on goal.
Laux tallied her second goal with 18:35 to play, deflecting a shot off Hunt’s hands and into the net.
It opened the floodgates, as the Patriots scored five times in the next 12 minutes, including three in less than two minutes.
Freshman Anhely Montes notched the first goal of her career when she buried a rebound on a shot from Laux. Montes almost had an assist earlier in the game when classmate Mikele Suman scored, but the play was whistled for offsides.
“Both freshmen, both tenacious,” Laux said of his forwards. “Great experience for them.”
Moments after the Montes tally, Bader scored when she brought the ball up the left side of the field and went far post past Hunt. Then with 16:08 remaining in the half, the junior scored again from the same side of the field. It gave Jay County a 5-0 advantage.
Sophomore Kendra Muhlenkamp and junior Irene Braun also tallied their first career goals. Muhlenkamp’s was on a penalty kick in the 28th minute for a 6-0 JCHS lead. Braun’s came six minutes later when Breea Liette sent a cross pass from the right side of the penalty area into the top of the goalie box, and Braun let go a left-footed shot past Hunt. Braun’s mark made it 7-1, after a defensive mistake led to Burris breaking the shutout.
A Jay County defender got too aggressive, taking a jab at Burris ballhandler Hanna King near midfield. The attempt missed, and King slipped past the defense for a breakaway. She dribbled into the 18-yard box toward JCHS goalkeeper Lilly Rogers, fired a right-footed shot to the left of the goal that Rogers deflected, but it hit the post and rolled over the goal line.
“That’s when those goals happen,” Laux said of the overly aggressive play by his defense. “You have to play the same (on) defense every time down because otherwise mistakes happen.”
Jay County controlled possession throughout, as Rogers only needed to make two saves. The Patriot defense spent most of its time near midfield, ending most chances by the Owls. In the second half, Rogers gave way to sophomore Shelby Caldwell, who made three stops.
“It was nice to get everybody in,” said Laux. “Because (Burris) didn’t have a JV, we wanted to get as much work today as we could.
“(We) tried a couple different girls at different spots so we’re getting some nice looks at what the girls can do.”
Lucy Laux completed her hat trick in the 45th minute on an assist from Kayla Ferguson, and she assisted on Liette’s second goal of the season with slightly more than six minutes to play in the game.
It was the sixth hat trick of Laux’s career and her first game with more than one assist.