Lawrence High senior Cain Scott chases down the ball against Shawnee Mission North defender Jeremy Sanchez in the first half of the Lions' 6-1 win over the Indians Tuesday at LHS. Scott scored twice in the first 10 minutes, and recorded a third goal in the second half to complete the hat trick.

Lawrence High senior Cain Scott recorded a hat trick, and put his name in the LHS record book in the Lions’ 6-1 win over Shawnee Mission North Tuesday.

While Scott — who netted his 14th, 15th and 16th goals to tie an LHS single-season record — was humbled to notch the hat trick, most of his excitement was about the Lions’ victory.

“Personally it’s nice, but I focus more on the team and how we do collectively,” Scott said. “But it is nice as an individual to get that.”

Scott scored twice in the first 10 minutes to jump-start the Lions. The LHS senior scored his first goal on a free kick from 20 yards out, and found the back of the net again less than two minutes later on a counter attack.

“It’s really important for all of us because this is the time of the season where everything matters,” Scott said. “We’re trying to get full-speed going into the playoffs.”

The floodgates opened later in the second half, as the Lions added three more goals to take a 5-0 lead going into the break. Senior Ebrahim Diagne got a soft touch on the ball to flick it over SM North’s keeper to push LHS’ lead to 3-0, and was the closest in the vicinity on an own goal just two minutes later. Senior Jakob Busch made it 5-0 with 5:04 to play in the half to give the Lions another insurance goal.

“I was really pleased with how we attacked,” LHS coach Mike Murphy said. “We’re an aggressive team, and we play the ball downfield and we try to go score goals. I think that the first half and getting the five goals, we can kind of settle in in the second half.”

The sizable halftime lead allowed Murphy to play his bench players for a majority of the final 40 minutes, which he was glad to do prior to the Lions’ final match of the season Thursday against Shawnee Heights for senior night.

“It was nice to get a couple of the seniors who don’t get as much playing time some playing time tonight so they’ll be ready to go for Thursday. Thursday is a big game for us,” Murphy said. “Not only is it senior night, but if we win it could give us a chance to host a playoff game. We’ve talked about that all season as a goal of ours is to be able to play a home playoff game. We’ve got to come Thursday ready to take care of business.”

The Indians did strike quickly coming out of the break when junior Oscar Aguilar sent a free kick into the upper 90 to put the Indians on the board less than a minute into the second half. The Lions had an answer, though, as Scott scored for the third time to complete the hat trick in the 48th minute and tie the Lions’ modern-day record for goals in one season.

“That’s the most we’ve had since Robert Lyan back in 2012 when he had 16. With one game remaining, maybe we can see Cain set that,” Murphy said. “At least the modern day (record) — we don’t have the stats from back before Free State opened. Who knows if there was anybody that ever had a really solid year scoring goals, but as far as I know, that’s about as good as there has been.”

Scott will be one of 12 seniors recognized in his final home match, as the Lions will take on Shawnee Heights at 7 p.m. Thursday. While Murphy has been pleased lately with how the Lions have been pushing the pace offensively, he said there are still a few things that his team can work on in preparation for postseason play.

They’re going to start marking him (Scott). That’s the thing we’ve got to start talking about,” Murphy said. “When they start putting two guys on you, you’ve got to find the open guy. Those will be things we can work on in practice (today) and Friday as we get ready for the playoffs.”