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Kate Hendrix celebrates with her teammates after scoring one of her four goals during a 9-0 area win over rival Pelham on March 22. (For the Reporter/Jeremy Raines)

By ALEC ETHEREDGE | Managing Editor 

PELHAM – The Helena girls soccer team not only picked up its first area win of the season on Wednesday, March 22, but the Huskies did so in dominant fashion with a shutout of rival Pelham.

Thanks in large part to a four-goal night from Kate Hendrix, Helena put together its third consecutive shutout win by at least nine goals in a 9-0 victory over the Panthers before a week-long break for spring break.

With the win, the Huskies improved to 8-8-1 overall and 1-2 in area play in a difficult area that also features Briarwood and Indian Springs.

Entering the game fresh off back-to-back 10-0 wins, Helena was confident early in the matchup, and it showed in the opening half.

Within 10 minutes of the start, Hendrix showed she was going to have a special night when she buried a goal into the back of the net for a 1-0 lead.

It took less than eight minutes for teammate Baileigh Rumage to join Hendrix in the scoring column as she drilled a shot of her own to make it 2-0 with 22:40 to play in the opening half.

It looked for a while like that might be the halftime score, which was still a manageable deficit for the Panthers, but Miah Rosener got one more score in before the half expired.

With 1:15 to play in the opening period, she added the Huskies’ third goal of the period to join her teammates and make it 3-0 at the halftime break.

That gave Helena all of the confidence going into the halftime break, and it showed very quickly coming out in the second half.

The Huskies didn’t cool off at all, in fact, the found a way to play even better.

Within the first four minutes, Hendrix and Rosener each added their second goal of the game to quickly jolt Helena out to a 5-0 lead with 36:46 left to play.

That was the start of a big second half for Hendrix, who followed with her hat-trick goal a few minutes later to make it 6-0 with 31:05 to play.

Hendrix, however, still wasn’t done. Three minutes later, she put together a hat trick in the second half alone by drilling her fourth goal of the game to make it 7-0.

Scoring cooled off for a few minutes, but Rumage eventually added her second goal of the night with 15:38 to play, while Stephanie Hall then joined the action with Helena’s final goal of the night three minutes later to complete the 9-0 victory.

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