LAUREL COUNTY, Ky. — SOMERSET — Over the years, North Laurel has had its way with Pulaski County, downing the Lady Maroons three out of the past four meetings - but the tides have turned in 2010. The Lady Jaguars and the Lady Maroons each come into the season with a youthful group. However, Pulaski had just a tad bit more experience with a majority of their starters returning this fall.

On Monday night at PC Field, it showed, as the experienced Lady Maroons downed the youthful North Laurel bunch by a score of 4-0, with two of Pulaski’s four goals came from senior forward Taylor Mounce.

“Overall, I’m very pleased,” opened Pulaski head coach Brian Elliott. “I couldn’t have scripted it any better.”

Elliott’s Lady Maroon squad came out shooting early in this one, with many shots hitting the post or the North Laurel keeper would make a spectacular save. In the 18th minute of the contest, the Lady Maroons finally got one past the keeper, as sophomore Kennedy McAlphin put her team out front 1-0.

With 11:06 left until the half, Mounce tallied her first goal of the night off an assist from McAlphin.

The Lady Maroons took the 2-0 lead into the break and never looked back.

Less than two minutes into the second half of play, Mounce dribbled right down the field past the Lady Jaguar defense for her second goal, giving Pulaski a three-goal lead.

Pulaski looked to add to the total after Mounce’s score but the North Laurel defense was there to make the stop. Noor Alqabandi’s shot was stopped by a spectacular save by the Lady Jaguar keeper and some cross passes from Shelbi Wilburn were put to a halt by the defense.

Wilburn got a goal of her own in the 52nd minute of the game, giving Pulaski their fourth and final goal of the night.

The Lady Maroons held onto to the shutout, winning the contest by a final score of 4-0.

“A lot of individuals made some little mistakes, stuff we’ve got to fix,” stated North Laurel head coach Rebecca Woodworth. “We had a couple of players not at 100 percent tonight, and that hurts, especially to start the season off.”

Sophomore Andrea Jenkins had six saves in her debut at the goal keeper position for Pulaski. Pulaski’s back defense of Rachel Colyer and Sarah Crawford had a little to do with that, keeping the ball away from the box.

“(North Laurel) didn’t put a lot of pressure on our goal keeper in Andrea’s first game, so getting a shutout was good for her,” explained Elliott.

There was a huge discrepancy in the shot category, as Pulaski out shot North Laurel 29 to seven in the game.

The Pulaski head coach was very upbeat about his team’s performance.

“I liked the passing,” Elliott stated. “There were a lot of good marks on the ground passing. Early on, they were trying to force some things with some through-balls, and that just wasn’t working. We talked to them and got it settled down and started making some plays.”

Despite the loss, the North Laurel coach was pleased with her squad’s performance.

“I think we played hard,” stated Woodworth. “We had a rough week last week - not a whole lot of practice with the heat and thunderstorms.”

Woodworth believes her team will team will be successful down the road.

“We are very young,” said the Lady Jaguar head coach. “I don’t think that’s as good as we can play - we can definitely be better than that. We’ve got to tweak the little things and get some confidence into our younger players. I think we’ll be alright.”

Both coaches thought the hot temperatures hampered each of their teams’ performance.

“It was hot,” said the Pulaski coach. “You could tell they were dragging at certain times. I hope the conditioning is there, it was just the heat that impacted that way.”

“We were definitely out of shape,” said Woodworth. “We’ve got to get our conditioning up a little bit - we died quickly.”