ABOVE: Fairmont's Mollie Leiding races past a Mankato Loyola defender during the first half of Saturday's contest against the Crusaders. Leiding finished her afternoon at Jeffery Kot Fields with three goals.

FAIRMONT – The Fairmont Area girls soccer team took down Mankato Loyola this past Saturday 4-0 at Jeffery Kot Fields, using a hat trick from midfielder Mollie Leiding to fuel the winning effort.

Fairmont head coach Matt Nielsen’s team has won its last three contests, moving their record to 6-2-2 on the season and 3-0-2 in Section 2A.

The Cardinals ended the game with 12 shots on goal compared to Mankato Loyola’s eight. Fairmont goalkeeper Addison Folkerts finished the afternoon with eight saves, helping her team earn their third shutout of the season.

“This has definitely been a making sausage process kind of season,” Nielsen said. “Now we are kind of getting there. … It’s been fun to see that they have embraced that change and that evolution and how they play, because it’s not easy at all. It seems easy to the outside person, like all you are doing is running and chasing a ball, but from my view they have done a fantastic job.”

Fairmont’s offense began the contest with an aggressive mindset right off the bat.

Using the Crusaders defensive tactics against them, Leiding dribbled down her right sideline in the opening moments following the kickoff.

The junior bolted past a handful of white jerseys before reaching the net, crushing the ball to the opposite goalpost and giving the Cardinals the lead less than a minute in.

“They [Loyola] were playing a really narrow field today,” Nielsen said. “That really allowed Mollie and Abbie in particular, but the other outside midfielders to just go down and take those edges.”

Fairmont continued to hunt for shots the rest of the half, refusing to settle for just one score. Midfielder Grace Kotewa got two good looks on goal at the 32- and 30-minute mark of the half, challenging Loyola goalkeeper Stella Munson and the rest of the Crusader defense.

The persistence finally paid off 20 minutes later.

An Abbie Simpson shot on goal deflected off Munson’s hands right into the lap of forward Mataya Webber, who ripped the ball through the net to double the Cardinals lead with 13:50 left before break.

“What was so great about that goal is that it was an effort goal,” Nielsen said. “It wasn’t just a fluke, it wasn’t necessarily a mistake by the defender, it was a pure effort goal. I was really really pleased with that.”

Despite going into the second half with a two point lead and a handful of shots on goal, the Cardinals offense stalled for the first 30 minutes of the period.

Nielsen credited the Crusader defensive unit for stalling his team’s scoring efforts. Head coaches Emma Sims and David Nachreiner made an effort to pack the middle of the field with their back-line scheme, causing the Cardinals to adjust as the game went on.

“When we were playing to their game was when we had any low passes across the middle,” Nielsen said. “They had six to eight players just clogging the middle, that was their game plan. We were really truly playing inside-out as much as we could.”

It was Leiding who was able to jump start the scoring yet again for Fairmont.

With nine minutes left in the match, Leiding, similar to her first goal, dashed past a handful of Crusader defenders on her right sideline and placed the ball perfectly past the outstretched arms of Munson to extend the lead.

She put on the game’s finishing touches at the 3:34 minute mark, catapulting the ball to the top corner of the goal to cap off the hat trick performance.

Fairmont returns to action on Tuesday, playing against St. Peter at Jeffery Kot Fields. The varsity match is set to begin at 7 p.m.