POCATELLO – The final whistle sounded and Highland’s players sauntered off the field as if it was halftime of a preseason jamboree.

Rather it was the culmination of Highland’s 5A District 5-6 championship, of a 16-0 record, of the No. 1 seed at state. And no one would have realized it if not for the emphatic applause and hollering from the Rams’ coaches and parents.

“I definitely think they had an expectation to win just based on how our season’s gone so far,” said Rams’ coach Korbie Vaughan.

“We just needed to get this done,” Highland senior forward Saydree Bell added. “State was the angle.”

Which is a shift for the Rams, who headed to state last season with little expectations and left with a third-place trophy – the first piece of hardware the Highland girls soccer program had ever collected.

A year later, the Rams aren’t just favored to win it all. They’ve flown through the season with incredible ease. Highland has outscored its opponents a combined 89-7. It hasn’t allowed a goal in nine games, back when Idaho Falls netted a lone score on Sept. 10. And Highland’s only one-score contest came against a great program from Utah.

On Thursday, Thunder Ridge parents didn’t celebrate a Titans’ goal but, instead, simply a shot on goal – which came with like 20 minutes left in the game. Just kicking a ball near the net against Highland felt like a victory.

Watching such domination brings about curiosity. How do the Rams not get bored?

“You’ve got to try new things if it’s not that fun of a game,” junior forward Abby Satterfield said.

“Luckily we’re not defense,” Bell interjected, before adding: “For us, it’s less boredom and it’s more lack of competition that makes us lax a little bit and we just want to have a higher level of style play.”

Style play is not an issue for Satterfield and Bell, a dynamic set of attackers who have combined to score 51 goals through 16 games.

Satterfield and Bell are two speedy, physical forwards who put opponents in a crux when they play off of each other. At some point defenders have to decide who they’re going to stop, and Highland’s top-line pair are so good at turning that commitment into an easy assist.

“I think we have this kind of mental connection where we know where the other one. I don’t know, twin telepathy or something like that,” Bell said with a chuckle. “I think our speed up top compliments each other really well. Our playing style, we’re both super aggressive.”

The entire Highland team, it seems, is super aggressive. Either that, or their skill level is a mile ahead of their opponent’s. Against Thunder Ridge, the ball stayed in the Rams’ half of the field for probably 95% of the game – a supremacy that isn’t supposed to show up in any sort of championship match.

Yet, Highland has been that extraordinary all season.

The only remaining question is if it can continue at state, if an undefeated team that hasn’t really been tested can roll through the best competition in Idaho.

“One of my challenges this year were playing teams maybe that weren’t going to make us rise to a level of state,” Vaughan said. “But I know my girls. I’ve played with them long enough to know that when that challenge comes, they’re going to rise to that occasion.”

They agree.

“It’s a different mindset, for sure, especially coming off our undefeated season,” Bell said. “We really have to switch our mindset and be ready for state.”