It was a great night on the pitch for the Loyd Star soccer program Thursday as they took a pair of games over their region and county rivals from West Lincoln.

In the opening girls’ game, the Lady Hornets (9-2) took a 5-2 win over the Lady Bears (6-4-1).

The finale saw a defensive battle with Loyd Star (5-5-1) eking out a 1-0 victory over West Lincoln (7-5) in the boys’ match.

Both Loyd Star teams are coached by Jordan Lea while Jeremy Johnson coaches the West

Lincoln boys and Dane Hodges lead the girls’ club. In a junior varsity boys’ match Loyd Star also took a 1-0 win.

For the Lady Hornets, freshman Abby Burnette scored twice in the win as did sophomore Alli Ferguson. Senior midfielder Abigail Brown added one goal while Ferguson chipped in a pair of assists. Sophomore Mary Claire McCurley added one assist as well.

West Lincoln got goals from Cara Jarancik and Deanna Lofton. On Tuesday Jarancik scored one goal and added three assists as West Lincoln won 7-0 over Hazlehurst.

Franklin County sits atop the Region 7-Class I girls’ soccer standings with a 4-0 division mark and 11-1-1 overall record. Loyd Star is now second with a 3-1 record and Wesson and West

Lincoln are tied at 2-2. Rounding out the division are Bogue Chitto (1-3) and Hazlehurst (0-4).

Franklin County beat Loyd Star 4-0 when the teams met on Dec. 4 at LS.

Both Loyd Star and West Lincoln are now off for the holiday break, but they’ll renew their rivalry with another match when school gets back in session on Jan. 5 at WL.

“I was pleased with the way we came out in the first half,” said Lea of his girls’ team that led 4-1 at intermission. “We were able to control the ball and connect with each other on passes. The second half we were sluggish, but our defense was able to hold on for the win. It was good to get a region win going into the Christmas break.”

Senior goalkeeper Nathan Nusbaum pithed the shutout in goal for the Loyd Star boys in their win. A Mason Smith goal 20 minutes in ended up being the winner for LS. Nusbaum made 13 saves on the night.

“The boys came out with great energy and never stopped pressuring West Lincoln,” said Lea.

“West Lincoln is very well coached and against a team like them, you can’t come out flat. We were finally able to put together a consistent, full game when we needed to.”

The loss snapped a two-match winning streak by West Lincoln as they’d beaten Wesson and Hazlehurst in the last week.

It was also the first division loss for the Bears. Franklin County is on top of the region standings at 4-0 while West Lincoln and Bogue Chitto sit at 3-1. Loyd Star is 2-2 while Wesson and Hazlehurst are both 0-4.