The Hornets built a 4-0 halftime lead Saturday and beat the Raiders, 6-1, to improve to 17-1-3 and secure their fourth consecutive final four appearance.

“Kirtland has a great program and everyone knows that,” said South Range coach Kelsey Malenic, whose team finished 15-5-1. “You can tell that they’ve got a lot of girls who play soccer all year round. We don’t have a lot of that, so that makes it difficult on us.”

Kirtland used a combination of speed and spacing to overwhelm South Range in the first half, competing on the Raiders’ end for about 90 percent of play.

By intermission, the Hornets had 18 shots and South Range had not taken a shot. Kirtland put nine shots on frame, with South Range goalkeeper Hannah Ball making five saves.

Staff photo / Brad Emerine South Range's Harley Novak, right, can't beat Kirtland's Leah LaVerde to the ball.

Erika Zschuppe scored the first goal with 32:35 left in the half and added her second nine minutes later. She then assisted Leah LaVerde with 14:31 left and again with 7:48 remaining in the half.

“Kirtland plays hard and we knew we’d have a tough one today,” Malenic said. “We just wanted to come out and give it our all and see what happens. I’m proud of my girls. The score doesn’t show it but we played hard and scored in the second half after being down as much as we were.”

Bree Kohler, one of three seniors on the South Range roster, scored seven minutes into the second half to make it 4-1.

“It was nice to score and I think it lifted our spirits some because the first half was demoralizing,” Kohler said. “We were really down. I felt like we played a lot better in the second half and didn’t get killed like we did in the first half.”

The Hornets made it 5-1 with Reilly Greenlee scoring with 21:28 remaining and Zschuppe topped the scoring and earned the hat trick with 15:345 left.

The Raiders, who beat Berkshire 2-1 in z regional semifinal when getting the game-winner on an own-goal with 35 seconds remaining, showed tons of improvement this season. They opened the season 2-3 and then went 11-1-1 to reach the regional final.

“We had a great season,” Malenic said. “As they year went on we matured and improved a ton. We’ll miss our three seniors. I’ve been with these girls since they were freshmen because this is my first year as head coach, so I’ve been with them every step of the way. I’ll miss them and I hope they have a great future.”

Kohler, though, couldn’t look into the future immediately because the hurt was fresh.

“The realization of not going on to play again is tough,” she said. “I know we’ve never been this far before and we worked really hard as a team, so maybe later on we’ll feel a little better about this. But just not yet.”

Ball finished with nine saves and Kirtland put 15 of its 28 shots on target. South Range had five shots overall and three on goal, as Kirtland keeper Corinne Aqulia made two saves.