Lakeland High School’s girls’ soccer team won its Conference 27 quarterfinal matchup against I.C. Norcom Tuesday night.

Lakeland earned the 8-0 shutout victory on a rainy Powhatan Field at Old Dominion University. Whether it was rain, hail, sleet or snow, nothing looked like it could have stopped the Lady Cavs.

“We started off a little slow,” Lady Cavs coach Adam Smith said. “But once we found a groove, we applied pressure the entire game.”

The slow start for Lakeland was due to the size of the field they were playing on. At ODU, the field is a bit bigger than what the Lady Cavs are used to. After the first few minutes, the Lady Cavs adjusted accordingly, which led to their huge victory. For almost the entirety of the game, Lakeland was on Norcom’s side of the field.

They believe this win can give them some momentum heading into the semifinal on Thursday. Lakeland will face No. 1 seed Tabb High School in the semifinals. They will be without their two seniors due to senior awards being today as well. Smith will adjust accordingly and still expects his team to show up and compete hard.

“We are just going to try to play them straight up and make them work for everything,” he said. “We are going to be young out there. I wish I could have my seniors, but I understand their other responsibilities.”

Smith can see his team learning from the district games they were playing earlier on in the season, and he is watching it pay off now. Lakeland was outmatched in most of those games, but they took things from those games and applied them to the conference games and have made the team successful. Lakeland has the No. 4 seed in the tournament.

Two different Lady Cavs scored two goals each for the team in their rainy victory.

Lakeland will be on the road today against Tabb High School at 7 p.m. The Lady Cavs do have their work cut out for them a bit, as Tabb was a state semifinalist last season. Smith knows the caliber of team he is facing and just wants his team to continue playing sound soccer and building on Tuesday night’s win.

Lakeland 8, Norcom 0

Lakeland goals—Johnson 2, Bell 2, White, Thompson, Beale, Campbell