For three seasons in a row, Fort Dodge was the only opponent the Marshalltown girls’ soccer team could beat.

This spring, the Dodgers were barely a speed bump on the Bobcats’ revival tour.

Gissel Hernandez and Kenya Gomez Reyes both scored twice as Marshalltown marched to a 6-1 victory over Fort Dodge in Friday’s Iowa Alliance Conference match at Leonard Cole Field.

Alexia Garcia and Lilyia Christen both had a goal and an assist as the Bobcats (3-1) matched their win total from their last three seasons combined.

Marshalltown went a combined 3-47 over the last three seasons, scoring just 22 goals in that time. Four games into the 2023 campaign, the Bobcats have 10 goals and three wins.

“I think they’re a very free-flowing team, almost to where they just go with it and they’re here to play,” said MHS head coach Stacy Galema. “They don’t worry about what’s happened and not necessarily what’s ahead either. I think we’ve done a really good job of focusing on the here and now.”

Gomez Reyes got the Bobcats out to a two-goal lead with her consecutive scores midway through the first half. Garcia dropped a corner kick off to Gomez Reyes, and her line-drive shot sailed high and out of the reach of Fort Dodge goalkeeper Camden Doster for a 1-0 lead at the 15:30 mark.

Gomez Reyes got on the board again at the 21:47 mark with a strong kick that skipped through Doster’s save attempt.

Only 2:02 later, Hernandez scored her goal of the season off a throw-in. She gained possession of the pass from near midfield, dribbled through and past a pair of Dodger defenders and didn’t stop until she had space to shoot. Her goal at 23:49 gave Marshalltown a three-goal lead going into halftime.

The Bobcats finished the opening half with 22 shots, including 12 on goal, while not surrendering a shot to Fort Dodge. Christen, the MHS goalkeeper in the first half, didn’t record a single save.

Instead, Christen contributed to the offense in the second half. A well-placed lead pass from Hernandez set up Christen for a sliding left-footer that bounded into the net for a 4-0 Marshalltown advantage at the 46:49 mark.

Fort Dodge got its only goal of the match at the 48:04 mark on a penalty kick by Tessa Carlson. Stefani Gutierrez, who took over in goal for Christen in the second half, was called for a foul in the box as she collided with Dodger forward Jase Madison. Carlson put the Dodgers on the board by beating Gutierrez, who ended up with three saves in her 20 minutes in net.

Irais Buenrostro got her first assist of the spring with a perfectly placed, left-footed cross into the box. Hernandez was waiting at the mouth of the goal and finished off the opportunity for her second goal of the night.

Garcia got her first goal of the season on an assist from Christen, finishing off Marshalltown’s first six-goal performance since a 10-0 win over Ottumwa on May 23, 2017.

“We’ve really hit on controlling the ball,” Galema said. “We need to find our teammates, that’s when we’re most successful. When we’re not chasing the ball we’re able to connect passes and find us. Obviously that gives us a little more energy when we do have the ball.

“We’ve been working the last couple days on making sure that once we get the ball, while we try to go forward — if it’s there we need to do it, otherwise we need to slow down and maybe move the ball more left or right instead of trying to run onto the ball every single time.”

The Bobcats, who were without five players who had seen the pitch earlier this season due to injury, have a three-match week on deck. Marshalltown visits Cedar Falls on Monday and Des Moines Roosevelt on Tuesday before hosting Mason City next Friday at the J.W. Fisher Memorial Soccer Complex.