Hollis Brookline's McKenna Maguire (3) and Coe-Brown's Camryn Buchanan (17) watch the ball deflect in front of CB keeper Sadie Scruton during Tuesday night's battle of Division II unbeatens in Hollis. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

HOLLIS – One onlooker near the end of the Hollis Brookline High School girls soccer team’s 6-0 win over Coe-Brown simply blurted, “Statement game.”

One-hundred percent.

If no one had any doubts about the Division II defending champions drive to repeat, that was settled as the Cavaliers dominated the team they beat in last year’s title game in what was a battle of unbeatens going in.

Wow.

The first 10 minutes of the contest were feeling out process, but then the Cavs went to work to get a 3-0 lead by halftime on goals by Marleigh Kreick (Molly Reardon assist), scoring machine McKenna Maguire (assisted by Lily Bouchard) and Reardon, assisted by Maguire.

Rosalie DeSantis added two goals in the second half while Maguire got the other for her second. Bouchard got a second assist on Desantis’ second goal, the final one, a play in which the Bears basically waved the white flag, no defenders anywhere near the play.

“I have confidence that when we play well, we can go hard at anybody,” Cavs coach Peter Clarke said. “But after last year’s playoff game (a 2-1 HB win), I wasn’t going to be complacent coming into this one. But I didn’t think we would take control the way we did.”

It really was total domination. It wasn’t even as if the 11-0 Cavs,now winners of 30 straight, peppered Bears goalie Sadie Scruton all that much. They just ran, passed, and scored. Simple.

“Once we put the ball back on the floor, and started to move it quickly and open up space, that started to make a difference,” Clarke said.

And it helped that the Cavs defense led by Kiera King, among ohers, was in shutdown mode. Keeper Maya Blackman had to make only a couple of saves in the shutout.

“They didn’t get to her much,” Clarke said. “They’ve got speed up front, and sometimes they’d get a ball through, but she’d get to it first.”

Is it possible this team is better than last year?

“I think it’s possible,” Coe-Brown coach Josh Hils said. “We’re playing a little shorthanded right now, and we have to adapt. But credit to them and Peter. They’re a heckuva team and they proved why their sitting on the top.”

In what way are they better? Or at least different from a year ago?

“There’s a a little more balance, a little more pace,” Hils said. “I mean for them pace-wise. For us, not our best energy and pace.”

Clarke sees the keys, and it’s working the field in the middle.

“The key to this team honestly is Marleigh Kreick and Molly Reardon in the midfield,” Clarke said. “We just move the ball so quickly. We just transition out of the back, they have a clever pass going forward.”

Hils said now the Bears have seen the level they need to get to but the Cavs main opponent now may be complacency or overconfidence. So far they’re winning that battle, too.

“We’ve worked on that all year,” Clarke said. “We came in here, 19-0 last year, it’s not a brand new start because it’s a continuous process. You know everybody’s going to come hard at you every night, and this team (Coe-Brown) had motivation.

“So every night your’re going to see somebody’s best game,so you have to step up each and every time. That’s what we stress. You’ve got to do it every single time you go out.”

They did it last night, for sure.