Clarkdale’s Cole Gardner reaches out to kick the ball to a teammate against Crystal Springs Tuesday night.

CLARKDALE — Ian Graham said he was slightly anxious for his team’s opening-round playoff game Tuesday night.

The freshman forward kept it under wraps, however, as he earned a hat trick in the first half while the rest of the Clarkdale boys soccer team struck for four goals to mercy rule Crystal Springs 7-0 in the MHSAA Class 1/2/3A first round.

The Bulldogs will travel to St. Patrick (9-7-4) Saturday for the quarterfinals.

“I don’t know about the team, but I was a little bit nervous,” Graham said. “They said they weren’t, but you never really know. I was a little bit.”

Clarkdale (14-8-2) won its fifth game in a row and advanced to the second round of the postseason for the first time since 2015.

“Last year we went down to Franklin County and lost in the first round,” Clarkdale head coach Luke Smith said. “So to bounce back this year, and to come win big here at home in front of all our fans, feels amazing.”

After missing a handful of chances off breakaway opportunities in the early going of the match, the Bulldogs got on the scoreboard after they missed a corner kick attempt but prevented the Tigers from clearing the ball, which found its way to Graham, who put away the goal eight minutes in.

Avery Anders scored eight minutes later after corralling the ball off multiple deflections in the box. Graham followed up with back-to-back tallies within three minutes of each other off a throw-in from Cameron Garrett and off a breakaway pass from Paxton Anders to make it 4-0 with 15 minutes to play in the first half.

Paxton Anders missed several shots to start the contest but eventually found the back of the net off a one-on-one situation with four minutes left to give Clarkdale a 5-0 advantage at halftime.

“We like to play that way sometimes,” Smith said of his squad’s numerous breakaway chances. “It’s not our favorite way to play, but we read the defense during the first few minutes of a game and make adjustments based on that, and we thought we could run past the defense pretty easily. A few minutes in, I told them to start playing those balls, and it started rolling from there.”     

Paxton Anders netted his second goal with 28 minutes to play in the second half, which he scored on another breakaway by slipping the ball under the Crystal Springs goalkeeper. Clarkdale picked up its game-ending goal 13 minutes after that. 

“We just try to work on diagonal balls and just try to get them through and just put them through the back of the net,” Graham said.

The Bulldogs finished with 17 shots on goal, while Kodee Conner saved all seven shots on goal from Crystal Springs (6-6-1) in the shutout.

“At this point in the year, it’s all about momentum, and if we come out here and win 2-0, we probably don’t have a lot of momentum moving forward,” Smith said. “To come out here, and to play as well as we did, to dominate this game and win with the mercy rule, it gives us a lot of confidence and a lot of momentum going into Saturday.”

CLARKDALE GIRLS 8, CRYSTAL SPRINGS 0

The Lady Bulldogs were already racing past the Lady Tigers when Mary Ashley Culpepper found her groove.

The junior midfielder tallied three straight goals in a three-minute span to aid in the Clarkdale girls soccer team’s 8-0 victory, which came 30 minutes early via mercy rule, in the first round of the MHSAA Class 1/2/3A playoffs.   

The Lady Bulldogs will play Sacred Heart (11-7-0) Saturday on the road.

“I’m glad just to come in here and get the job done and do what we needed to do to get to that second round,” Clarkdale head coach Brandon Rodgers said.

Brooke Gibson gave Clarkdale (15-5-1) its first goal four minutes in before Mallory Smith fired a shot over the Crystal Springs (3-8-0) goalkeeper. Brooke Robinson tallied her first goal off a shot that deflected off the opposing goalie and landed in the back of the net, then poured in her second after stealing a pass to put the Lady Bulldogs up 4-0 with 22 minutes left in the first half.

Culpepper then notched her trio of goals, with the third coming off an intercepted goalie kick which led to an open look at the net. Sharon Pech then gave Clarkdale its eighth and final tally of the evening with five minutes remaining in the half.

“(The offense) came in, did the work, put shots on target and really just put the game away in that first half,” Rodgers said. “We’ve got several girls that can pitch in and get some goals. It feels good to spread that around, especially heading into what will probably be a tough game Saturday.”  

The Lady Bulldogs finished with 20 shots on goal in picking up its 10th consecutive victory.

“With it being the first round of the playoffs, it was a little boost of confidence,” Culpepper said. “But now we have to start tomorrow, and we’ll train really hard for whoever we play Saturday. We have to train hard for the next three days, and then hopefully execute Saturday.”