Thusly, just as the final horn sounded Friday night, out came the pre-printed T-shirts inscribed with: “District champs again. It never gets old.”
Belton played over, around and through College Station A&M Consolidated, putting the finishing touches on the outright District 12-5A championship with a 3-0 win at Wilson-Kerzee Field.
It is the fifth straight district title and second consecutive perfect league season for the Lady Tigers (20-1-3 overall, 14-0 in 12-5A), who have a district record of 61-1-4 in the last five years.
And it’s the pressure of continuing such a streak that keeps the accomplishment from becoming old hat.
“That first one was special. Now sometimes it’s a relief to win it because that expectation is there,” Belton coach Barry Elkins said. “But a lot of that is our own expectations that we put on our own shoulders.
“We put the pressure on ourselves to get that job done. So it’s nice when we get it done.”
Belton came into the night having already clinched the district’s top seed for the Class 5A playoffs, in which it will face Mesquite Horn in a bi-district match at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Midlothian ISD Stadium.
Likewise, Consolidated (15-5-4, 12-2) had already locked up the second seed and will face North Mesquite in the first round Tuesday at Waco ISD Stadium. But Consol coach Stony Pryor’s team could have shared the district crown with a win.
“If we could have pulled something out against them, we would have been co-champions and we would have liked that,” Pryor said. “But the fact of the matter is, both teams want to do well in the playoffs and I think this game will help us do that.”
Belton matched its 3-0 win in College Station last month by getting a first-half goal from sophomore Jourdan Brown to go with a record-breaking goal from senior Chelsea Jones and an own goal in the second half.
Freshman Hadley Young got behind the A&M defense to chip a shot over goalkeeper Casey Wilhelm that was going to be cleared off the goal line before Brown slid in to shove it across for a 1-0 lead 27 minutes in.
After outshooting Consol 16-2 before intermission, the Lady Tigers turned up the pressure even more to start the second half. The relentless attack resulted in an own goal when Madi Coufal’s flip throw-in from 25 yards up the line brushed off an A&M defender as it bounced over Wilhelm’s head for a 2-0 advantage just two minutes after the break.
The capper came, fittingly, from Jones only two minutes later after she received a pass about 20 yards out.
The Texas A&M signee outmaneuvered a defender, calmly placed a shot under Wilhelm and into the bottom-right corner of the net for the 105th goal of her career - breaking the program’s all-time record set last year by Erica Michaud.
“It’s just scoring, so I guess it hasn’t really hit me yet,” Jones said of the career mark. “But once I graduate, I can always look back and see that I have the record.
“I’m more excited that we won. Each year, we’re expected to win (the district title). So there can’t be any flaws.”
Consol managed just seven shots, only two of which had to be handled by Belton keeper Kelsi Darr. Another one was blocked out front by defender Kallie Lahey.
It was the absence of glaring flaws and the Lady Tigers’ attacking style in the second half that pleased Elkins the most heading into the postseason.
“We want to play more direct in the playoffs,” Elkins said. “But during our district season, we’re able to move the ball easier so sometimes we just fall back to relying on that.
“I stressed at halftime that I wanted them to make a more concerted effort to be a lot more direct in the second half, and I think we did a good job of that."
edrennan@temple-telegram.com
