TENNERTON – The Buckhannon-Upshur Lady Bucs made short work of the Preston Knights in their sectional opener Tuesday night at the high school.

It took the Lady Bucs just a little more than a half (53 minutes) to put 10 goals on Preston in a 10-0 shortened game on the 10-goal mercy rule.

The Bucs won their regular season game over Preston by a 3-0 score.

Buckhannon-Upshur head coach Jason Piacente said it wasn’t about finding anything new with Preston’s games that led to the huge victory this time around but more to do with how his team is playing right now.

“We have been working on being more creative in scoring our goals,” said Piacente. “I want us to be a more dangerous team scoring-wise, and I think we have shown that the back end of this season. I really don’t think it was as much as to what Preston was or wasn’t doing tonight, but rather our improvement since we played them the last time. Things are coming easier for us now.”

The final score even caught junior center mid-attacker Hannah Boyles off guard, who had a goal and two assists in the win.

“I expected us to win, but I didn’t think we would play as well as we did,” stated Boyles. “We really put a bunch of goals on them early and killed their spirit. We have really been focused on this sectional tournament. We have put in a lot of work to win this sectional tournament and go to regionals.”

Harley Dean put the Lady Bucs on the right path with a goal within the first minute of the game, with the assist going to Mallory Hughes.

Dean scored again six minutes later, with the assist going to Boyles.

Haley Triplett scored less than a minute later, with Boyles picking up her second assist.

The game remained at 3-0 for the next 20 minutes until Grace Queen tallied an unassisted goal.

Molly Radabaugh wrapped up the first half scoring by finding the back of the net with an assist by Triplett.

Dean tallied the first two goals of the second half in the 43^rd and 48^th minutes, with Sidney Hollen getting the assist on the first.

Radabaugh scored an unassisted goal in the 51^st minute to make it an 8-0 game.

Boyles scored a minute later with the assist going to Triplett, and Queen scored a minute later with an unassisted score to wrap up the game.

“We are doing such a better job of connecting passes, especially in the box, to create chances for our offense,” stated Piacente, as this was the second time his team reached double digits in goals.”

The Lady Bucs owned a 22-1 lead in shots-on-goal and a 3-0 lead in corner kicks.

Buckhannon-Upshur was guilty of three fouls, while Preston was called for a foul.

B-U keeper Kyndal Davis stopped the one shot she faced, while Preston goalie Kadence Whitehair stopped 12 shots.

The victory was the fourth in a row for the Lady Bucs as they improved to 12-5-4.

They will now face Bridgeport Thursday at home for the sectional championships after Bridgeport beat University Thursday night by an 8-1 score.

The game will kick off at 5:30 p.m.

“If we come out and play our game Thursday against Bridgeport, I am fully confident we can get the win,” concluded Piacente. “We have a very talented team that has worked very hard this season.”