POTTSVILLE - It was one of those days when you wish you had never seen the crack of dawn.

In this case, the Tamaqua girls soccer team was the one having the nightmares.

It was supposed to be an even match with Pottsville - two squads looking to steady the ship and hold on to second place in the Schuylkill Girls’ Division 1 Soccer League (it’s a given that undefeated Blue Mountain is going to be hard to catch).

Unfortunately, the Blue Raiders couldn’t figure out how to slow down the speed of the Crimson Tide on Monday. It was like NASCAR vs. a scooter. Pottsville went up and down the field, scoring at will on its way to a 7-0 win.

“We just couldn’t stay with that type of speed,” Clem McCarroll, the veteran Tamaqua coach said. “No matter what we tried, we just couldn’t defend fast enough.”

Grace Evans was the speedy gal who had a fantastic game. She finished with four goals to pace the attack.

“She’d rather give the ball up than score,” longtime Pottsville coach Bob Stock said. “Believe it or not, she could have had a few more scores.”

Evans hardly broke stride on the way to her first goal, which came unassisted at 32:49 of the first half. Then in a jiffy - exactly four minutes later - Evans was getting an assist from junior Abbie Davis, hitting the back end of the net for a 2-0 lead.

“We work hard at passing, and we work hard at our game with our speed,” Stock said. “We told the girls don’t take them lightly; they’re always tough.”

With 25:48 on the clock, the Tide punched home their third goal. This time, junior Kaily Olenick booted the point into the net to push the Tide up 3-0.

“We don’t like to play dump and run,” Stock said. “We like to pass the ball; we work at that very much everey day in practice.”

Tamaqua was never in sync thereafter.

“They’re a tough team, they’ve got speed up and down (the lineup),” McCarroll said. “They put the ball through and they would use that speed, which is amazing.”

Pottsville booted in two more goals to take a commanding 5-0 lead at the half. Davis got into the scoring act with an unassisted goal at the 10:20 mark, and with 9:48 to go before the respite, Evans was celebrating a hat trick with a full half still to play.

By that time with Pottsville in a comfortable position, Stock cleared his bench.

“We like to move the ball up passing, we don’t want to play a running game,” he said.

But Evans looked like Speed Racer early in the second half, netting her fourth goal of the contest. Moments later, Emma Morris concluded the scoring.

“We felt coming in that we could hang with them,” McCarroll said. “We didn’t realize how much speed they had … we just wanted to contain them.”

That never came to pass.

“Our defense got torched, it’s not just one - it’s the whole team,” McCarroll said. “We didn’t play well as a team.”

COUNTING IT UP … Unofficially, Pottsville had a whopping 20 shots on goal, while Tamaqua struggled with just five. Tamaqua keeper Cecilia Ulicny was valiant through it all.

WHERE THEY STAND … Tamaqua (4-3; 3-2) suffered its second loss in league play, while Pottsville (7-2-1; 5-1) moves into second place in the division after winning its fourth game in a row.