CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – The West Creek Coyotes traveled to Rossview High School for an inner-city matchup and the Hawks’ home opener on Thursday. Rossview took control of the contest early and never let up, winning 9-0 in 76 minutes to start their home schedule off with a win, highlighted by a hat trick from Zahria Walker.

The West Creek defense held strong for the first 10 minutes before Rossview’s Olivia Stuard started the scoring with a goal in the 11th minute. Walker and Lakshmi Korivi both got on the board in the first half in the 28th and 39th minutes to put the Hawks up 3-0 going into the halftime break.

“We’ve been stressing possessing the ball and doing the little things right,” said Rossview head coach Connie Castleman. “We had a lot of great passes, cuts, and communication, and it was kind of like that perfect storm of everything you want to see in a match, and it helped us dominate that half.”

Rossview tacked on six more goals in the second half, one each from Annie Rudolph, Kailei Kaneshiro, and Casey Steel, while Walker added two more goals to complete the hat trick.

| MORE LOCAL SPORTS: Sign up for the free daily Clarksville Now email newsletter

While West Creek fell in this one, Coyote head coach Craig Nakutis is ready to bounce back in their next outing. “Rossview is a loaded team with experience, and we’re a young squad,” said Nakutis. “The good thing is we’re playing good teams, and it’s kind of a trial by fire. There are a lot of growing pains, but they understand what they have to do to be successful. It does hurt to lose, but our district games are where we want to be at our best.”

As for Rossview, it’s a big bounce-back win that Castleman is hoping the team can build off of, and use this momentum early in the season to continue to get better.

“We absolutely needed tonight’s win,” said Castleman. “We have a lot of big matches coming up soon, and we came together as a team and saw some great things happen. We want to continue to carry that success, take the little things we did right, and hone in on those to carry our momentum forward.”

| DOWNLOAD THE APP: Sign up for our free Clarksville Now app