The Rams, led by the two goals of Makenzie Van Sickle, ran over the Madison Bobcats en route to a 4-0 shutout win Tuesday afternoon at Bannock County Fields.

    With precision passing and physical one-on-one play, the Rams set the tone early and often, creating opportunities when they had possession and stifling opportunities when the Bobcats had possession.

    But it wasn’t too often Madison had the ball

    “Last time we played Madison, they had a really good girl on their team who plays center-mid and she won a lot of those one-on-one balls,” said Highland head coach Korbie Vaughan. “Our goal today was we were not going to allow that to happen. We were going to challenge those 50-50 balls and do a better job of winning those in the air.”

    But the opportunities, while many, yielded no points until the 28th minute. Van Sickle received a pass at the back-third and sprinted to the top left of the box. After strafing to her right and letting two Madison defenders whiz by her, Van Sickle buried a shot into the left of the net.

    And while the Rams’ defense cleared their box without panic, the Rams’ offense continued to get shots. But more often than not, they were shot directly at Madison keeper Charlie Jensen or over the goal and into the street.

    The Rams and Bobcats went to their sidelines at halftime with Highland carrying a 1-0 lead, and there were many scores left on the field.

    “We talked about that at halftime,” Vaughan said. “Sometimes I think that they feel like they have to just cream the ball, and they don’t have to cream it. They just have to find the net and pass it in.”

    The pep-talk worked, and in the final 40 minutes, the Rams’ attack relaxed while still maintaining a steadfast and deliberate pace.

    In the first three minutes of the second half, Highland found itself up 3-0 thanks to Jade Medina and Van Sickle.

    In the 42nd minute, Sydnie Hammon held the ball in the right corner of the field and found Medina streaking down the middle. Hammon blasted a cross through the box where Medina collected it and put it in to make the game 2-0.

    A minute after that, Van Sickle found herself one-on-one with the Madison keeper. As Jensen came to contest, Van Sickle blew past her and shot into the open net to give Highland the 3-0 advantage.

    “I felt like they came out and played fine in the first half, but definitely came out better in the second half,” Vaughan said.

    After Madison cleared their own box in the 45th minute, they began working the ball back into Highland territory. Madison Morgan didn’t like that. She flew into the scrum of Madison players, stole the ball, raced down the field with a flock of Bobcats behind her and sent the ball past the keeper to make the score 4-0.

    It was a fitting cap to a runaway Highland victory.

    “I felt like the possessed the ball really well and took care of the business that we need to,” Vaughan said.

    Highland (7-0-1, 5-0 5A 5-6 District) travels to Preston to take on the Indians Thursday at 4 p.m.