The Lakeland High School Lady Cavaliers allowed their first goal of the season, but were effective enough to register an 8-1 mercy rule-shortened victory against the visitors from King’s Fork High School on Wednesday evening.

Lakeland head coach Tara Worley was not pleased with her team’s performance in Monday’s conference opener against Nansemond River High School, and her appraisal of Wednesday’s showing was not much different.

“I still think that the girls are not fundamentally sound right now,” she said.

She has said off-the-ball movement is what the game is all about, and her girls are not doing nearly enough of it. She said other fundamentals are missing, as well, like receiving the ball on the stick, rather than having it rebound and also passing into space.

“They’re playing pretty lazy, in my opinion,” she said.

Nevertheless, the Cavs were able to keep the ball behind the Lady Bulldogs’ 25-yard line for most of the game.

Senior forward Summer Parker scored three goals and had two assists to lead her team. Senior midfielder Kristen Vick scored twice and had an assist, while the other goals came from senior forward/midfielder Alexis Albright, senior midfielder Jamee Albright and sophomore midfielder Shannon Leonard.

Alexis Albright, senior forward Jessie Cox and senior back Kasey Smith also had assists.

Worley hopes to see a lot of improvement from her team during the next few weeks as the season reaches its midpoint. She said mistakes led to the first goal given up by her team this year, but she gave credit to the Lady Bulldogs.

“King’s Fork is continuously getting better,” she said. “They have a committed coach and committed players who came here to give it their all, and they did.”

KF head coach Courtney Van der Linden used to play for Worley and has brought a brand of intensity to the Lady Bulldogs reminiscent of her former coach.

After the game, Van der Linden said, “We’re still not where we need to be, but showing more improvement.”

While she said her team’s speed was better, she said her players needed to move their feet more, and “We didn’t capitalize on the opportunities that we were given.”

But upon learning senior forward Holly Wilson’s goal was the first scored against Lakeland this season, Van der Linden said, “Aw, yeah! That’s exciting.”

Given the Lady Bulldogs defense was at work for nearly all 45 minutes of play, weathering 30 penalty corners, Van der Linden was pleased with the effort.

To help slow Lakeland, she changed some of her players’ responsibilities, and praised them, saying, “They adjusted well when I switched their defensive role.”

King’s Fork’s forwards had little to do offensively, but rather than be idle, Van der Linden charged them to help out on defense, which they did. “They were basically coming back and making things happen,” she said.

Lakeland (5-0, 2-0) will play on Monday against Hickory High School at the U.S. Field Hockey National Training Center in Virginia Beach. At the same time, King’s Fork (2-3, 0-1) will host Nansemond River High School.