Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

NORTH SHELBY – The Briarwood Christian Lions found themselves in a fire-fight on Tuesday, April 1 when they took on another high-octane offense in the Hewitt-Trussville Huskies.

However, Briarwood outpaced the No. 9 team in Class 7A as the 6A No. 5 Lions secured the 6-3 victory at Lions Pride Stadium.

Briarwood opened up the scoring in the fifth minute when Thomas Lanier sent in a pass to Carson Tucker as he finished off the goal to put the Lions on the scoreboard.

Just three minutes later, Sawyer Felton went to work on the offensive end as he started a prolific burst of attacking. He took an assist from Tucker and placed the ball in the back of the net to score Briarwood’s second goal of the match.

Felton quickly found the netting again in the 10th minute, taking advantage of a strong chance from Reece Frost to fire home his second goal of the last three minutes and the Lions’ third of the opening 10 minutes of play.

The scoring pace slowed down for Briarwood from there, but it didn’t let the halftime whistle come without scoring again. Lanier secured an unassisted goal in the 24th minute to put a four next to the Lions on the scoreboard.

Briarwood’s defense largely kept Hewitt-Trussville at bay as it allowed just one goal in the opening 40 minutes. That effort on both ends of the pitch gave the Lions a 4-1 lead at the halftime break.

The second half was a much more even offensive effort as both teams matched each other’s scoring output in the final minutes of the fixture.

Just five minutes into the second half, Lanier created another big chance for Briarwood as he found Brock Shields on a pass. Shields took care of the rest to score his team’s fifth goal of the match.

While the Huskies scored twice during the second half of play, Tucker put the nail in the coffin in the 70th minute. He scored an unassisted goal for his second score of the night.

That put the finishing touches on the 6-3 victory for the Lions over a top-10 Class 7A opponent.

Tucker finished with two goals and an assist, Felton secured a brace with two goals and Lanier earned a goal and two assists. Shields rounded out the scoring with a goal while Frost earned the other assist.

Briarwood improved to 12-4 overall with the win and will look to maintain its perfect area record on Friday, April 4 at 7 p.m. when it hits the road to face the Chelsea Hornets.

The varsity girls will play beforehand at 5 p.m. as they aim to bounce back from a 2-1 defeat to 7A No. 6 Hewitt-Trussville that dropped them to 6-6 overall.