Last year, Spain Park wasn’t supposed to be in the Class 6A girls’ soccer semifinal, but with one game to play in the regular season, the Lady Jaguars are the favorite for the 6A title.

Spain Park has won 16 straight games, including a 3-1 win over Oak Mountain Thursday, since the Eagles shut out the Jags, 2-0, in the Lakeshore Shootout final Feb. 21.

“We’re a totally different team than we were when we played them in Lakeshore, and they’re a totally different team,” Spain Park head coach Jonathan Weimer said. “Every time we play Oak Mountain, it’s going to be a grudge match and there’s going to be a lot of fouls, not because it’s dirty, but because it’s that rivalry between the two of us.”

Thursday was the fourth meeting this season between the two teams, and was no different, as there were plenty of elbows thrown, shoves and other shots made as Spain Park jumped on top 3-0.

“We just got overly excited and didn’t play composed like we do. It was senior night and the girls wanted to come out a lot stronger than we did and we were all disappointed. We know we’re better than that,” Oak Mountain head coach Kelly Clayton said.

Spain Park senior Brittany Morgan put the Jags on the board in the 12 minute of play off an assist by Lakin Eddy.

“It set the momentum for us and made us want to play harder once we got that first goal,” Morgan said.

Less than a minute later, it was 2-0 Spain Park after Madeline Hughes found Kristen Gue for a goal. Hughes assisted the Jaguars’ third goal in the 21st minute by Eddy.

Oak Mountain managed to get on the board in the 24th minute on a goal from Marisa Tomaszewski.

Neither team scored in the second half, as Lauren Arnold had six saves for Spain Park and Shanna Brooks had two for Oak Mountain.

The win completed a Class 6A, Section 5 sweep for Spain Park as it won the Section 5 championship and will host Pelham in the first round of the 6A playoffs April 28. Oak Mountain finishes as runner-up and will travel to Thompson in the first round after not making the postseason last year. The winners of the two games will meet in the second round.

“We’re by no means done working on things to get better on. We have to get ourselves prepared for the first game, and then we’ll see them (Spain Park) the second game,” Clayton said.

Top-ranked Spain Park (19-1-2, 10-0) will host No. 2 Grissom (20-1-0) Saturday at noon, while No. 3 Oak Mountain (14-4-1) will travel to Briarwood (10-6-1) Tuesday night.