McALLEN — After McAllen High’s Savannah Ruiz scored off a Bailey Huston pass 30 seconds into their Friday night match for a 1-0 lead, head coach Pat Arney hollered out, “We needed that.”
Actually, it was all they — but not all they got — as the Bulldogs advanced to the UIL Class 5A Regional Semifinals, also known as the “Sweet 16,” with a 5-0 win over the Corpus Christi Veterans Eagles at McAllen Veterans Memorial Stadium.
McHi improved to 21-0 on the season, while Corpus Christi fell to 15-3-2. McHi will play Cedar Park in the regional semifinals Tuesday with more details to be announced later. Cedar Park (19-6-2) advanced to the fourth round with a 2-0 win Monday over Boerne-Champion.
“We’re getting to where we want to be,” Arney said.
Huston and Mallory Henderson each scored twice, and each had two assists as the Bulldogs put the ball in the net in waves. They scored their first two goals during the first 14 minutes, Henderson scoring the second one on a penalty kick after being dragged down in the box.
Similarly, McHi scored twice during the first three minutes of the second half, the first one coming 29 seconds into the period as Henderson found Huston streaking up the middle and fed her a through pass, leaving her one-on-one with Veterans goalkeeper.
During next two minutes the Bulldogs had two more streaking attempts, one stopped on an offsides call and another where the shot on an empty goal went just wide.
Then, with 37:01 remaining in the game it was Huston who found the speedster Henderson, whose shot was true and to the bottom left corner of the net. Suddenly, the score doubled from halftime to 4-0 during the first three minutes of the second half.
“We talked about getting the forwards the ball more in the second half and they did that,” Arney said. “The girls continue to play well and I think when you’re up at the half it just makes it easier.
“Corpus was man marking us a lot and we were moving and crossing a lot and we had more speed than them. When you do that and get the passes out front, it’s a foot race.”
Huston and Henderson kept firing away during second and at the midway point, Huston took a beautiful shot on goal from about 30 yard out, aiming for the strong side top shelf, but the shot just went over the goal.
On the way back toward the sidelines, Arney gave Huston some advice, telling her to dribble in deeper for a better angle.
Less then a minute later, she worked her way into the middle of the box and fired a shot before taking two hits and giving McHi a 5-0 advantage.
“Bailey had come on strong when we needed her,” Arney said. “She’s been clutch. They went out of their way to stop those two (Mallory and Bailey) and couldn’t do it. They are playing awesome.”
It wasn’t just the offense that was clicking, however. The Bulldogs were dominant all over the field, controlling possession for nearly 85% of the match. Mia Reyna seemingly danced with the ball, avoiding defenders like a matador does with charging bulls, the midfielders transitioned quickly and attacked often and the defense allowed the Eagles little space, shutting down nearly every counter attack and long pass attempts. The couple of times they got into position for a shot, ‘keeper Grace Kelly was there.
“Our center back, Cassidy Leftwich was just poised,” Arney said. “If anything got by our two fullbacks, she was there. Not only was our defense on their forwards and denying them, but they would intercept the ball and make a great pass to the midfielders.
“We had a lot of movement and great touches on the ball tonight.”