The light bulb is starting to shine brighter for the Jacksonville girls’ soccer team.

Coach Amanda Pelch and her players agreed with that statement following the second-seeded Cardinals’ 9-0 victory over No. 15 Triton on Wednesday night in the second round of the NCHSAA 6-A playoffs.

“It’s getting there,” Pelch said. “We’re definitely firing a whole lot better in a lot of different places than we were, and we are finally starting to put more pieces together. I wouldn’t necessarily say this was their best … but this was a really good step in the right direction.”

Junior Caroline Doyle, who scored four goals, agreed that the Cardinals (14-3-2) have elevated their game. Jacksonville has outscored its last five foes 28-1, including four shutouts.

“It’s turning up a little bit,” Doyle said. “It’s the playoffs. So, it’s either you win or you lose and go home, and you don’t get to be with the seniors anymore. We want to win because we don’t want this to end.”

Next up for Jacksonville is a third-round home fixture Monday against Thursday’s winner of No. 10 West Johnston (13-6-1) and seventh-seeded Middle Creek (10-6-4).

The Cardinals look to make another deep postseason run after a fourth-round trip last year that followed their state title in 2024.

“We are very confident this season. I feel like we will be able to do good if we just work together as a team,” junior Madison Haigler said. “Just us being able to play together and the opportunity to win states again motivates us. We want to bring it all the way home.”

The Cardinals certainly looked to be on the same page against Triton (11-8-3).

Doyle had two goals in each half while senior Ryder Perry recorded a hat trick, one goal coming via penalty kick, while senior Sienna Corless netted the first goal on a PK and sophomore Avery Simco finished with a goal.

Seniors Riley Morrow and Ava Stephens continue to be solid distributors while Haigler, senior Caidy Nelson and freshmen Josephona Nunu and Serenity Singleton and junior goalkeeper Hailey Dufore continue to play strong defense.

“We have started to do some stuff in practice just to get them more competitive,” Pelch said. “We’ve introduced a little bit more fun into practice. Well, I wouldn’t necessarily call it fun, but we are doing things in practice to get them motivated.”

Pelch added the coaching staff has “been meaner about fitness” in recent weeks. The Cardinals have responded.

“All week, that is what we did,” Doyle said. “We’ve pushed each other and we have worked on things that we need to do because we know we have to compete at a high level.”

The Cardinals are also motivated from a 3-1 defeat at J.H. Rose, a defeat April 21 that marked Jacksonville’s first conference loss since 2022. That outcome resulted in Jacksonville and J.H. Rose sharing the Big Carolina 6-A/7-A Conference title – the Cardinals 10th consecutive league crown.

“It definitely woke us up,” Haigler said. “I knew we would snap out of it. We have played as a team, and we have brought up the energy.”

Chris Miller can be contacted via email at cmiller@jdnews.com. Follow him on X @jdnsports.