The Boyle County girls are movin’ on up.

Less than a year after the Lady Rebels took the program to new heights with their best postseason finish ever, they made another move up by winning the Kentucky 2A Championships girls soccer tournament for the first time.

Boyle defeated Christian Academy of Louisville 7-4 on Sunday in Owensboro to win the 2A tournament, a statewide in-season competition for mid-sized schools.

It’s the second monumental achievement in two years for the Lady Rebels, who last season reached the semifinals of the state tournament for the first time, and coach Brian Deem said it takes the program to a higher plane once again.

“I think it’s elevated us,” Deem said. “We’re still a small little 2A school … but we get the most out of our players and we love to compete. It definitely has raised the bar for us, and now we’ve got another one to go after.”

Boyle (12-3-1) has four regular-season games – it hosts No. 19 George Rogers Clark on Wednesday – before beginning its pursuit of district, region and state championships.

“They’ve got (Monday) off and they’ve got until (practice) Tuesday at 3:30 to enjoy this, and then we get back on board and get ready to go,” Deem said. “This isn’t the end of the year. We’ve got another (championship) we’re working toward.”

Boyle buried No. 23 CAL under an avalanche of goals in the first half Sunday after falling behind 1-0 three minutes into Sunday’s championship game at Apollo’s Eagle Stadium.

The Lady Rebels took control with four goals in 11 minutes – three by Maggie Burke and one by tournament most valuable player Addison Hazlett.

“You just saw the light switch come on and we did what we do,” Deem said.

Reagan Britt scored from 45 yards to give Boyle a 5-2 halftime lead, and Ellery Taylor added two goals in the second half to seal the win.

Deem said Boyle’s defensive backs and goalkeeper Addie Cannon also played well to contain CAL (12-2-1), which was averaging 4.4 goals per game.

“It was a total team effort,” Deem said.

The victory came at the end of a stretch of eight games in 14 days for Boyle, which made two five-hour round trip rides on consecutive days for the semifinals and finals.

After the Lady Rebels defeated previously unbeaten Johnson Central 8-0 on Saturday afternoon, all but a couple of players returned to Danville for their school’s homecoming dance that night, then got back on the bus early Sunday morning to return to Owensboro.

“To see them with the passion and the fire and the energy they had was special. They sold out,” Deem said.

Hazlett scored three goals, Taylor scored two and Maggie Gnann, Claire Combs and Ellen Gnann had one each in the win over Johnson (11-1-2).

Boyle won its first 2A title in its third appearance in the statewide competition established in 2021 for schools with enrollments between 600 and 1,000. The Lady Rebels had not advanced beyond the sectional round in the previous two years.

“It’s a championship for everybody that’s ever gone through here,” Deem said. “There’s always that first team that did it, but the path was laid by everybody that came before.”