WAYNESVILLE – The Wilmington High School girls soccer season ended Saturday with an 8-0 loss to No. 2 seed Waynesville.

“Waynesville is a great team and they are very deserving of the No. 2 seed,” WHS coach Alex Rhinehart said. “We knew all week they would be an extremely tough team to defeat.”

The Lady Spartans led 1-0 at halftime then scored seven goals in the second half to break the game open.

“We felt our best chance to be competitive with them would be to shut down their D1 commit, Marcella Sizer, and try to play our best against the rest of their very deep team.”

For one half, the WHS strategy worked. Claire Greenlees “effectively shut down Sizer,” Rhinehart said.

Waynesville had two penalty kicks in the first half. Wilmington keeper Karlie Morgan made a save on the first one but but not the second and it was 1-0.

“Between Claire and Karlie you could see the frustration from Sizer,” Rhinehart said.

But the Lady Spartans “size, athleticism and skill were demonstrated in the second half” with the seven-goal uprising, Rhinehart said.

“I’m proud of the way the girls came out and faced a challenging team,” said Rhinehart. “I’m also proud of the season the girls put together. While the win-loss record fell short of our goals, the girls demonstrated a development this season that sets the state for long-term program development.”