At a conservative estimate, 60 percent of the first half of the Stratford-Madison bi-district girls soccer playoff game Tuesday night was played in front of the Madison goal.

Perhaps anticipating a scoring onslaught from the Spartans, who sought their 22nd win of the year, the Marlins packed the field with defenders in an often-successful effort to keep the game close.

But Stratford’s counter was too much for Madison to contain.

The Spartans switched to a three-forward look after halftime and broke the game open, scoring five goals to rout the Marlins 7-0 in a 5A game at Delmar Stadium.

Michie Mandell and Ashley Davis scored two goals apiece to lead Stratford (22-1-3), which earned its first tournament win in five years. Cat Eiser, Emily Brickhouse and Misha Sharp added a goal each; six players contributed assists.

“They were giving us trouble in the first half because they had so many players up on defense,” Stratford coach Chris Matthews said. “So we brought in three forwards and it put a lot of pressure on them and we were to able finish several plays and score some goals.”

Sharp gave the Spartans a 1-0 lead halfway through the first half, and Eiser made it 2-0 eight minutes later by wrestling free of a defender and easily scoring.

But Stratford wasn’t comfortable, so Matthews turned to a scheme only recently used at the varsity level though some players were familiar with it from club soccer.

“That was our normal formation that we’ve used all year with Cat (Eiser) and I up top. We’ve been together since she was a freshman and I was a sophomore; we work really well together,” said Mandell, a senior forward who scored both her goals in the second half. “But (the second-half formation) gets us ready; it gets us in attack mode. We just started using that; we just tried it out to see how we’d do with it and it works really well.”

Stratford advances to play Katy Taylor or Cy-Fair in an area-round game later this week. The site and time will be determined Wednesday.

Tuesday was the Spartans’ first game as a No. 1 seed in the district tournament. They earned the co-District 19-5A championship with Memorial by going 12-0-2, tying the Mustangs twice.

Stratford’s only loss was to Fort Bend Elkins in the preseason. Cy-Fair defeated the Spartans in a scrimmage.

“We pride ourselves on defense and teamwork and the girls have excelled all year. They’ve really bought in,” Matthews said. “I’ve had talent and speed (with other teams) but never have they worked as well together as they do here. We had our issues early in the year but those are smoothed out now. Things have definitely improved.”

Sharp added her second goal less than two minutes after halftime for a 4-0 lead. Davis punched in her second with less than a minute to play.

“Whenever the score gets that (lopsided) we try to work on skills to prepared for the next game,” Mandell said. “We don’t want to embarrass any other team. We just want to work on what we need to do to be prepared and make our game stronger.

“We had one main goal at the beginning of the year – to win district – and we did. For a senior year, this is the way I want to go out.”

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