Hughes and his Mustangs boys lacrosse teammates entered Green Hope’s stadium ready to take on a perennial contender. They exited with a lopsided win.

Middle Creek, now a half-game ahead of Athens Drive for second place in the Conference 2 standings, scored the first 11 goals of the game en route to an 11-3 victory.

Hughes had only beaten the Falcons once before in six previous tries.

“We have never beat Green Hope that soundly in my four years here,” Hughes said. “It feels pretty good.”

Hughes scored four goals and assisted on one other.

“We picked opportunities well,” he continued. “We really started moving the ball and being unselfish, just making the extra passes and making Green Hope slide and move around and break down and get down on themselves.”

Middle Creek (6-2, 6-2) held a slim 3-0 lead at halftime, but Green Hope (2-4, 2-4) lost faceoffs and couldn’t connect on several routine passes to get the offense going.

The Mustangs responded by erupting for six goals in the third quarter.

Senior Andrew McCauley was a key facilitator for the Mustangs, scoring two unassisted goals and set his teammates up with five assists.

“We just wanted to keep capitalizing on their mistakes and keep going to the cage and not stop playing our game,” McCauley said.

Ben Doetzer and Will Hunter also scored one goal apiece for the Mustangs, while Arno Olivier and Doetzer had one assist.

Joeseph White added three goals.

Middle Creek needed a win after suffering its first conference loss the game before.

“It shows character that this team was able to come back, play well and get a ‘W’ after a tough game,” Middle Creek coach Paul Robison said. “Hopefully this team is ready for anyone who’s up next.”

Middle Creek was, winning again on Thursday at home against Holly Springs to leapfrog the Golden Hawks in the standings.

Green Hope coach Dan Morrison has just four seniors his team. The inexperience showed early on as the Falcons mishandled passes and couldn’t finish close shots on goal.

“We didn’t connect passes,” Morrison said. “We definitely didn’t run our offense and that caused for a sloppy game on our part.”

The young team improved as the game went along, scoring all three of its goals in the final 5:37.

“Hopefully we can turn it around and have a better second half of the season,” Morrison said.

“I don’t think any of our losses this season have been because of effort. We just need to get sharper with our execution.”

Will Nassif scored twice for Green Hope, while Logan Sprung also netted a goal. Ryan Boyle and Will Rhodes were each credited with one assist.