ONEIDA | Prior to Oneida’s game against Campbell County on Thursday, there hadn’t been a hat trick scored by a local player this fall soccer season.
There have now been three of them.
Three Oneida seniors earned hat tricks during the Lady Indians’ 9-0 win over Campbell County, each scoring three goals.
Aliyah Douglas was the first to do it, scoring back-to-back goals in the 55th minute and the 58th minute.
Alexea Jones was the next to do it, scoring her second goal of the second half in the 60th minute.
Then Kamryn Kennedy did it, scoring in the 61st minute to end the game prematurely.
Kennedy had two first half goals to help the Lady Indians build a 4-0 lead at the intermission. But Oneida coach Phil Newport would later say that his team started slowly. When the dam broke, though, it broke in a big way. The Lady Indians scored four goals in less than six minutes to have the game called with 19:10 left on the clock.
Prior to that, it was a 5-0 game, with Jone scoring just over two minutes into the second half off an assist by Douglas, who finished with four assists to accompany her three goals.
Then Douglas scored an unassisted goal, followed by a goal that was assisted by Jones, before Jones scored a goal that was assisted by Kennedy and, finally, Kennedy scored a goal assisted by Jillian Cross.
“We were a little sluggish out of the gate,” Newport said. “We had a lot of good looks just a little off-frame early. We cleaned that up well in the second half. I thought offensively we got better with our combinations as our passing began to get better.”
Newport credited the defensive play of Rory Blevins with helping achieve the shutout, along with defensive work by Jaylin Anderson and Ali Smith.
“We got a little too invested in the offense and Campbell County found too much space in the middle sometimes but Rory, Jaylin and Ali tightened up on those,” he said.
The Lady Indians started the game much like they would start the second half: an early goal by Jones. She scored in the fourth minute to get things started. It would be another 20 minutes before Douglas scored off an assist by Jones. Just over a minute later, Kennedy scored the first of her two first half goals off an assist by Douglas. Then she scored again in the 37th minute, again assisted by Douglas.
Campbell County played most of the game without its head coach, who received two quick yellow cards for protesting a call early in the game and was ejected.
“Everyone polished off the sloppiness in the second half,” Newport said. “It was a good game to get our work in with combination play and they worked much better off of each other. I was very pleased with Jones’ distribution and Aliyah did much better finishing balls late. I thought Kamryn hooked up to the end of balls that resulted in her goals.
“It wasn’t our best at times but then they began to click, so I’m happy they found their way of getting back to work,” Newport added.
He also credited the play of Presley Queener, Cross, Emilee Sexton and Kamryn Stiltner.
