ANAHUAC — Meg Sheppard opened the scoring for Nederland about 15 to 20 minutes into the match, and the Bulldogs didn’t score again in the first half.

The offensive explosion came in the second half.

Sheppard netted two more goals for her fifth hat trick of the season, leading the District 21-5A champion Bulldogs to a 6-0 win over Santa Fe on Friday in a UIL 5A bi-district match.

“Tonight was really exciting,” Sheppard said. “We had a really good start.”

Despite that, the Bulldogs had to change up their scheme in order to put away the Indians (12-10-2).

Among the changes, Sheppard moved to the midfield and moved up other players for scoring opportunities. The result: Karrie-Faith Anders, Brynn Landry and Hanna Foster added goals in the win for the Bulldogs.

“That’s when we started going and getting all our goals and connecting with each other,” Sheppard said.

Nederland, which will play Manvel next, has only played twice in the last 21 days, given spring break and off-date last Friday.

“We took about an hour and a half to practice every day, and we really had some intense practices,” Sheppard said.

Coach Aaron Tomplait felt the extended time off might have cost the Bulldogs a faster start than he had hoped.

“I think that was a big factor,” he said. “I say slow, but we did score one.”