SWEPT OUT OF TOWN | Kilgore’s soccer girls, boys sweep Hudson, both advancing to round 2

Kilgore’s Natalie Hudman (2) tries to outrun Lufkin Hudson’s Lesly Rodriguez. Hudman and her teammates outran Hudson, for sure, an 8-1 Lady Bulldogs’ win with Hudman and Phenix Rivers each scoring three times. Kilgore’s Bulldogs beat Hudson, as well, 3-0 on Tuesday night. Both Kilgore teams advanced to the second round of the UIL Class 4A playoffs; the girls will face Bullard on Thursday, the boys will host Lindale. (Photo by ALEX NABOR – ETBLITZ.COM)

If Lufkin Hudson fans, coaches and players had their druthers, as Southern folks say, they’d rather not ever lay eyes on Phenix Rivers again.

Oh, and Natalie Hudman, you can go with her, they’d say.

In fact, Kilgore High School’s boys soccer team would probably be in that conversation, as well – maybe even were in that conversation on the way home from Kilgore’s R.E. St. John Memorial Stadium on Tuesday night.

In front of a large crowd, with the KHS Hi-Steppers performing, the cheerleaders on hand, parents everywhere, Kilgore’s Lady Bulldogs, then the ‘Dogs, swept Hudson in a pair of University Interscholastic League Class 4A bi-district, or first-round, playoff wins.

Kilgore’s girls won 8-1, with Hudman and Rivers each netting the hat trick (three goals each), and the Bulldogs, although it might have been a little harder than they thought, won convincingly as well, a 3-0 shutout.

Kilgore’s boys will play Lindale – Lindale defeated Paris, 3-1, on Monday night – back at R.E. St. John on Thursday night, a 7 p.m. start, confirmed Wednesday morning by KHS coach Hector Peralez.

The Lady Bulldogs will play Bullard on Thursday at 6 p.m. at Grace in Tyler, and Kilgore is the home team for that second-round game. Bullard defeated North Lamar, 6-0, on Monday night.

First, though, the Lady ‘Dogs beat Lufkin Hudson for a second straight year in the  girls 4A playoff bracket.

A year ago, Kilgore’s girls knocked out Hudson in a bit of a classic Mike Tyson impersonation, with Rivers getting goal after goal and running Hudson out of R.E. St. John.

This year, Rivers was a bit slow out of the gate (she’d make up for it before the end of the game), but Hudman was early – and often.

First on the scoreboard, less than two minutes into the game, was Maria Barron, hitting the back of the net just to the side of Hudson goalkeeper Remi Radke (1-0 Kilgore, 38:13).

And then Hudman scored, just 30 seconds later, doubling the Lady ‘Dogs’ lead (2-0 Kilgore, 37:52).

Seven and a half minutes later, another Kilgore goal: Ruby Almanza (3-0, 30:24 left in the first half). The Lady Hornets were down by a hat trick and hadn’t even been playing 10 minutes.

Hudson managed to play keep-away for about 20 minutes, and then Hudman scored her second goal – and Kilgore’s fourth – with 10:48 left in the half (4-0), and before the half was up, Rivers broke through for her first. Oh, and we should mention that she did it on a shot from 25 yards out (5-0 Kilgore, 7:28 left in the half).

That would be the last goal of the first half.

Hudson’s Dakota Less put what turned out to be the only goal of the game for the Lady Hornets past Kilgore’s defense with 26:05 left in the second half.

And then the floodgates opened again. Rivers scored twice in less than five minutes, the second one from 32 yards out (she thought she’d try and better the 25-yarder she had before – and managed to do it). That gave KHS a 7-1 lead, the second one with 12:49 left in the game.

Hudman scored the final goal of the contest (8-1), with 4:09 remaining.

Hudson’s season ends with a 13-8-2 overall record.

Coach Todd BonDurant’s Lady ‘Dogs move on to the second, or area, round, with a 19-4-1 record so far this season, and four straight wins.

Bullard has won 19 of its last 20 games, including Monday’s blanking of North Lamar in round one of the postseason. In those 20 games, the Lady Panthers gave up only five goals.

That’s what’s ahead. But before Peralez’s Bulldogs could even think about moving to a round-two game against Lindale, they had to take care of Hudson themselves.

And normally, that hasn’t been a problem. Oddsmakers would likely have made Kilgore, winners of 16 straight district championships counting this year (that’s not a misprint), a huge favorite.

But Hudson’s strategy was to play eight, nine, 10 guys in the box in front of the goal, hoping to keep the score as low as possible – and even take Kilgore to a penalty-kick finish.

That didn’t happen. But Hudson did stay around a while, doing so by managing to muddy the water, so to speak, in front of their keeper.

That strategy worked for a while – it appeared Kilgore had scored, but the Bulldogs were called for offsides, nullifying the goal.

But minutes later, the Bulldogs DID score, specifically Jorge Aleman, with 8:32 left in the half. And then a second goal, with 5:50 left in the half, by Enrique Salazar, that one with Jose Vasquez on the assist, gave the ‘Dogs a 2-0 lead at the half.

After the Hi-Steppers rocked the house in the halftime show (see the ETBLITZ.COM Facebook page for that entire 2 1/2-minute performance), Kilgore scored again, this time apparently Adan Reyes getting the knock-in, possibly deflected off a Hudson player, with 37:56 left in the game.

But that would be all, no further scoring – no further offense, really, from Hudson, whose season ends with a 12-10-3 overall record.

And as for Kilgore, it’s a second-round matchup back at home against Lindale, an Eagles team who beat Paris in round one and is 18-8 on the season. One of those eight losses, it should be noted, was a 6-1 loss to Kilgore back on Jan. 5.

The Eagles come into the game against KHS on a three-game winning streak.

Kilgore, of course, has been a runaway train of a program for well over 12 seasons, having won the last 16 district championships (just unreal), and a state title in 2017.

Since then, though, the Bulldogs haven’t made it back to Georgetown for the 4A state tournament (one of those years was 2020, when it appeared Kilgore would cruise through the playoffs, only to have COVID-19 shut everyone down before they really got started).

The current Kilgore senior class of Bulldogs has a record of 95-12-6 as a class, and five more wins (which would be this season) would give them 100 senior-class wins. They’ve also been excellent in district play, of course: 52 wins, two losses.

The Bulldogs as a team, collectively, this season are 21-2-2.

Kilgore’s Adan Reyes (7) guides his way through traffic against Lufkin Hudson at home in the UIL Class 4A playoffs on Tuesday night. The Bulldogs won, and will host Lindale on Thursday. (Photo by DENNIS JACOBS – ETBLITZ.COM)