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The Huntland High School Lady Hornets beat the Community Viqueens 3-0 at home Tuesday in a semifinal game for the District 9A tournament.

The Lady Hornets took the lead midway through the first half and steadily built on their advantage the rest of the way to advance to the district championship game.

Huntland head soccer coach Amanda Tipps said she’ll take a win to advance in the postseason and extend her team’s season, but she added that it wasn’t the best performance for the Lady Hornets.

“I don’t feel like we settled in really well. I don’t feel like we connected passes. Those kinds of things that we’ve been doing well leading up to tonight just weren’t there,” she said. “I think it was just the emotion of the game with the implications of if you don’t win.”

The Lady Hornets were awarded a penalty kick about five minutes into the contest, but the ensuing attempt by Hazel Reed would be deflected away by Community’s goalkeeper to keep the game scoreless early.

The first goal of the day came about 16 minutes into the first half as Reed took the ball from a defender at the top of the goal box and fired a shot into the back of the net to give the Lady Hornets a lead.

Reed scored again with about four minutes remaining in the first half as she broke away from the defense at midfield, maneuvered around several defenders after they caught up to her and found the net with a shot for her second goal of the day and her eighth of the season.

The Lady Hornets led 2-0 at halftime.

The Lady Hornets had a chance at another penalty kick with about 21 minutes left in the game, but Community’s goalkeeper came up with another big stop as an attempt by Piper Cox was deflected out of bounds with a diving save.

However, the Lady Hornets were able to add to their advantage less than a minute later as Bristol Moon deflected a corner kick from Raegan Johnson across the goal line for her seventh score of the year.

Huntland’s defense kept the Viqueens off the board for the rest of the day as the Lady Hornets recorded their fourth shutout of the season.

With the win, the Lady Hornets improved to 10-3 on the season.

They will next play Thursday against Cascade High School at Forrest High School in the District 9A championship game. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m.