Knightdale girls soccer gets first win, routs Southeast Raleigh

It took eight games, but the Knightdale girls soccer team finally earned its first victory of the season as Taylor Townsend and Jayla Biggs scored two goals apiece in a 9-0 victory Wednesday over visiting Southeast Raleigh in a Greater Neuse River Conference contest.

Biggs scored the opening goal less than four minutes into play for Knightdale (1-5-2, 1-2-1 GNRC), and Cameron Harrell forced the mercy-rule stoppage when she scored the game’s ninth goal with just over two minutes remaining. Southeast Raleigh is 1-6, 0-3 in the GNRC.

“It was good,” Knightdale coach Aaron Steele said of the decisive victory. “One of the key things we have been trying to do is stay healthy. Right around the third goal, I started pulling some girls. ... We’re going on two weeks in a row with three games each, a lot of teams we’ll play will have that depth that we don’t have without a JV team.”

Biggs scored off a cross from Elizabeth James with 36 minutes, 22 seconds remaining in the first half to put Knightdale up 1-0. Just over five minutes later, James scored on a long shot off a corner kick to make it 2-0.

Townsend followed with back-to-back goals in span of less than two minutes, the later of those with 25 minutes remaining in the first half to put the Knights up 4-0.

This story was originally published March 22, 2017 at 11:31 PM with the headline "Knightdale girls soccer gets first win, routs Southeast Raleigh."