El Dorado cruises past Hot Springs 7-0

El Dorado's soccer girls bounced back from a setback with a 7-0 win over Hot Springs Tuesday at Memorial Stadium. The Lady Wildcats improved to 3-2 overall and 1-1 in conference.

Caroline Meadows recorded a hat trick with three goals. Marleigh Bonsall, Melanie Miller, Julia Jackson and London Ingram had one goal apiece.

The Lady Wildcats led 5-0 at the half.

“Coming off a loss

against Lakeside, the kids kind of got refocused,” said El Dorado coach Neville Matthews.

“We changed a couple things around where we were compromised on defense. We gave a little more help to the defense. It worked out pretty good, but I think we could've played better. I felt like we played down to the competition a little bit.

“For the most part, overall, we did pretty good. I got a chance to get some of my young players in the game. They played the bulk of the game, really, once we got a good lead.”

El Dorado peppered the net with 11 shots on goal in the first half with three in the second.

Defensively, Matthews estimated the Lady Trojans may have gotten off two shots on goal.

“The goalkeepers didn't have a lot of work to do because the midfield stepped up and they played a lot of defense in transition. The goalkeepers had a day off. They had an easy day. We had a lot of help on defense with the midfield dropping in to help,” said Matthews.

“That's one of the changes we made in our strategy, have the defense drop down and help a little more. It seemed like the defense was getting overwhelmed in some of the games. The other teams would have the numbers on us.

“We had to change up our game plan a little bit and pull some people back to play in transition. It worked out pretty good. We just tweaked it a little.”