CLARION — It didn’t take long for Spenser Myers to reach a milestone.

And make sure the Karns City boys soccer team reached the District 9 Class A final again.

Myers scored three goals in the first half — his last the 100th of his career — as the Gremlins cruised to a 3-0 win over Elk County Catholic in the district semifinal at Clarion University Tuesday night.

“It’s a huge accomplishment for me,” Myers said. “I couldn’t have gotten here without my team and the previous teams that helped me get goals in the past. It’s a huge honor.”

Karns City (17-1) dominated throughout with Myers finding the net less than five minutes into the match.

Myers, a junior midfielder, scored again with 24 minutes remaining in the first half and notched his milestone goal 13 minutes later.

Elk County could not mount much of an attack throughout with just four shots on goal.

“Our defense stepped in and got physical,” said Karns City coach Jim Grenninger. “I thought Caleb Garing, Noah Claypoole and Ian McElroy — that’s the best they have played all year, passing the ball out and not panicking.”

The offense wasn’t too shabby, either.

The Gremlins were crisp on their attacks with Myers the beneficiary.

“The passing was great. We opened up a bit more and got more spacing,” Grenninger said. “It’s something we haven’t done in the last two games and it showed.

“I don’t think there is anybody in the district playing the kind of ball we do now, passing the ball as well,” Grenninger added.

Karns City will play No. 1 seed Brockway for the district title Thursday at a site and time to be determined.

Girls Soccer

Karns City 6, Redbank Valley 0

Karns City girls soccer coach Tracy Dailey was worried about the long layoff.

The Gremlins hadn’t played a game in two weeks.

But Karns City was crisp in building a 4-0 lead at the half and cruised to a 6-0 win over Redbank Valley in the District 9 Class A semifinals at Clarion University Tuesday night.

“I was nervous tonight — we’ve been off for two weeks,” Dailey said. “We came out and we were a little anxious to begin with, but we settled down.”

Megan McCartney scored two first-half goals and also had a brilliant assist on a goal by Haley Scherer and Hannah Knoll added a pair of goals for the Gremlins.

Brianna Brusamonti also found the net in the lopsided win.

Karns City (17-1) stayed sharp during its long layoff by working on the little things in practice, McCartney said.

“In practice we just went over set pieces, corner kicks, penalty kicks, just the basic stuff,” McCartney said.

The Gremlins also tried to keep it fun and loose.

“We actually had an ice cream sundae social one day for practice,” Dailey said, laughing. “We just sat around and chatted about what we needed to get done. We chatted about some soccer, but about what was going on in each other’s lives. That was nice.”

On Tuesday, the chatting was mostly celebrating goals.

The Karns City defense also excelled, holding Redbank Valley’s leading goal scorer Jasmine Adams to no shots on goal.

Redbank Valley had only one shot on goal the entire match and that came with 5:44 remaining.

“We knew we needed to shut her down and I think we did very well on that tonight,” Dailey said. “One of our practices did go over what our best options were to stop her. We didn’t mark her ... our defenders stepped up for us tonight.”

Karns City will play Dubois Central Catholic for the district title Thursday at a site and time to be determined.

This time the Gremlins will have just one day off before shooting for their fourth straight district title.

“We did well tonight even with two weeks off,” McCartney said. “Now we have one day off — it should be good enough. Hopefully we’ll bring the same performance Thursday that we brought today.”