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The Franklin County High School girls soccer team beat the Lawrence County Lady Wildcats 9-0 on the road Tuesday in the team’s first game of the season.

Franklin County opened up a big lead early and never looked back as the team invoked the mercy rule with about 10 minutes remaining to bring an early end to the season-opening district contest.

Franklin County head soccer coach Kent Bean said that the win was a good way to start the year with his team remaining focused and aggressive throughout the contest.

“We took a few shots early in the game that were just off-target, but we just told them to keep shooting, and then eventually, it started going in,” he said. “I’m just really pleased with the effort and with the girls coming out, changing some of the things we talked about after this past weekend, doing better and seeing it work.”

The first goal of the day came with about 27:32 remaining in the first half as Osiris Rodriguez received a corner kick from Karly Neal and knocked the ball into the net for a score.

Rodriguez scored again after receiving a pass at the top of the goal box about 30 seconds later to quickly give Franklin County a 2-0 edge.

Rodriguez completed her first-half hat trick with about 20 minutes remaining in the period as she scored off of an assist from Caitlyn Cashion to bring the early advantage up to 3-0.

Gracen Baggett would be the next Franklin County player to score as she received a pass from Riley Howell and chipped the ball past the opposing goalkeeper to put the score at 4-0 with 17:26 left in the first half.

Cali Banks brought the lead up to 5-0 with eight minutes to go in the first half as she fired a shot into the net after receiving a pass from Sydney Webb.

The final goal of the first half came with about six minutes left in the period as Valeria Gomez scored off of an assist from Banks to bring the early lead up to six goals.

Franklin County led 6-0 at halftime.

The second half got off to a relatively quiet start in terms of goals scored until Rodriguez found the net off an assist from Nyomi Arellano for her fourth goal of the game with 21 minutes remaining.

Banks followed with her second goal of the day a few minutes later with Danika Arellano providing the assist to make it an 8-0 game with 16:30 remaining.

An obstruction call gave Franklin County an indirect free kick inside of the opposing goal box with about 10 minutes remaining, and a series of passes from there ended in Banks completing a hat trick by scoring off an assist from Cashion with the mercy rule also triggering in the process to immediately end the game.

With the win, Franklin County opened the season with a record of 1-0.

The girls soccer team will next play Thursday at home against Marshall County High School. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m.