By ALEC ETHEREDGE | Sports Editor 

HELENA – Helena’s boys and girls soccer teams were able to see a promising start to the 2019 season on Monday, Feb. 11, as the two teams beat the visiting Moody Blue Devils by a combined score of 11-1.

The girls put together a dominant shutout by a final score of 7-0 thanks to Riley Hulsey and Taylor Davis, a freshman and sophomore, respectively.

Husley not only picking up a hat trick with three goals, but also adding two assists to her stat line, as she spent the majority of the night around the ball, while Davis knocked through an unreal four goals on her own to give those two all seven of Helena’s goals in the win.

For the boys, it was a balanced effort on both sides of the ball, which led to a 4-1 victory to kick off the season. It’s a confidence boost for a team that finished 7-13-1 last season, and with a few seniors and several juniors and sophomores, this team has a good balance of youth and experience to build for the future.

While the girls ended the game with a dominant win, their game started much more mild mannered than the final score indicated by putting up just two first half goals.

Hulsey picked up her first assist of the game for the Huskies very early on when she found Davis in the middle of the field, which led to an easy first goal when Davis was able to beat the keeper for a 1-0 lead.

That duo continued to succeed throughout the game, and less than seven minutes later, the two traded places as Davis did the assisting by finding Hulsey for her first goal of the game to put Helena on top 2-0 in the early going.

While that was all the scoring the Huskies were able to put together in the first half, their defensive effort made those two goals more than enough, as they took a 2-0 lead into the halftime break.

Knowing how well the defense was playing, it seemed to loosen the offense up to start the second half.

Hulsey was able to quickly add her second goal in the first few minutes of the half after finding a seem and sprinting up field, before eventually finding the back of the net.

That just seemed to spark an already confident Helena team, as well as Hulsey’s ability to score.

Less than three minutes later, she was able to pick up her hat-trick goal when Rebecca Rodgers fed a beautiful pass into the box to her. Husley’s first shot was off the keeper, but she was right there for the rebound to bury the second shot in the back of the net to give Helena a 4-0 lead.

The quick scoring continued shortly after, as Davis connected on a deep shot to extend that lead to 5-0 and post her second goal of the game just three minutes after Hulsey’s hat-trick goal.

It didn’t take much longer for Davis to pick up her hat trick as well. Close to 15 minutes after pushing through her second goal of the game, Davis was able to pick up her third thanks to a great pass from Brook Hopton-Jones, which put the Huskies on top 6-0.

Two minutes later, and she did it again. This time, freshman Bailee Washington was able to find Davis for her fourth goal of the game to close out the scoring and give Helena a 7-0 win to start the season.