Senior Keri Luna heads the ball near midfield during Saturday night's match in Shelbyville.

  SHELBYVILLE---In what would have to be viewed as a statement game for the Shelbyville Golden Eaglettes, they won the regular-season district championship Saturday night with an impressive 3-0 win over the Tullahoma Lady Wildcats.
  Under coach Neil Gordon, the Shelbyville program has progressed steadily to the point that it has presented a legitimate challenge to the Lady Wildcats' dominance of District 8-AAA soccer the past few years. And, they've defeated the Lady Wildcats before, so the win itself was not so much a statement by the Eaglettes. The statement was in the way they did it.
  Shelbyville dominated play on both ends of the pitch, particularly in the first 20 minutes when the Eaglettes scored all three of their goals with a faster, more physical style of play. The Lady Wildcats came into the match having allowed just six goals all season, so the three-goal performance by Shelbyville in the first 20 minutes was a stunner.
  To their credit, the Lady Cats finally leveled things off in the final 10 minutes of the first half and most of the second half, but the Shelbyville advantage on the scoreboard was never in jeopardy.
  The Eaglettes scored just 5:10 into the match on a perfect pass from Ashley Smith to Kayla Warren in front of the goal, and Warren made it 1-0. They added a second goal approximately 10 minutes later by Hannah Martin, then they got their third goal at the 20:14 mark when Warren and keeper Katherine Baltz kicked a ball almost simultaneously near the top of the penalty box, and it flew high in the air over Baltz’ head and into the empty net.
  That was it for the scoring. The next 60 minutes were mostly a possession battle with both teams having a few chances to score but neither converting.
  With the win, Shelbyville earns a first-round bye in the district tournament. Tullahoma will play host to the seventh-place team in the first round. Shelbyville moves on to the Oct. 14 semi-finals at Franklin County High School, and Tullahoma hopes to be there also. Since they would be in separate brackets, a re-match could take place in the district finals if both take care of business in the semi-finals.
  Shelbyville celebrated senior night before Saturday’s contest, and Tullahoma will do the same Thursday at East Middle School. They take on Riverdale in a 6 p.m. non-district contest.