MOULTRIE — When the Colquitt County girls soccer team got off to a 1-7 start last season, the immediate- and near-future prospects may have looked less than rosy.

But since then, the Lady Packers are 15-5 and will be able to better gauge just how far they have come when they play host to Tift County at 5:30 p.m. today at Mack Tharpe Stadium at Tom White Field.

The match between the Colquitt County boys (5-4 overall, 2-1 in Region 1-AAAAA and winners of four of their last five) and the Tift County boys (1-6-1 and 0-3) will follow at about 7:30 p.m.

Colquitt County’s girls won seven of their final 11 matches last season and will take an 8-1 record into tonight’s meeting with the Lady Devils. The Lady Packers have won eight in a row.

Tift County’s girls, which lost just two starters off last year’s team that was 12-2-2 and advanced to the second round of the state playoff before being eliminated by East Coweta on penalty kicks, is 6-0.

Both teams are 3-0 and are the last unbeatens in the region.

“I’m looking forward to it,” said Colquitt County girls coach Jimbo Jarvis. so far. It’s nice to be playing Tifton. It should give us an idea about where we are in the region.”

The Lady Devils have outscored their six opponents by a combined 35-2.

Among the victories is a 10-1 win over Lee County and a 10-0 blanking of Thomas County Central. In their three region matches, the Lady Devils have defeated Houston County 6-1, Coffee 2-0 and Valdosta 2-0.

The Lady Devils key this season was trying to find a replacement for All-Region goalkeeper Ivy Gartman.

Tift County has just three seniors in Natalie Barber, Cassie Couch and Jennifer Jones, but does have Maggie Crowley back again. She led the Lady Devils in scoring last season.

Jarvis is well-aware of Crowley’s potential.

“We are going to mark up Maggie,” Jarvis said. “Then we’ll just have to outscore them.”

Jarvis said he and his team well-remember the two matches with Tift County last year.

The Lady Devils won 6-0 in Tifton and 5-0 in Moultrie.

“They blew us out of the water twice,” was how Jarvis characterized it.

The Lady Packers appear much stronger this season, both offensively and defensively,

Since the 3-1 loss to Warner Robins to open the season back on Feb. 15, Colquitt has defeated is last eight opponents by a combined 40-6.

“And a lot of the goals we have given up were cheap ones or came when we had less-experienced players in,” Jarvis said.

“Nobody’s just pounded us. I consider Kaitlyn (Price) the best goalie in the region. She’ll hold her own.”

Offensively, the Lady Packers have featured a five-pronged attack led by freshman Alba Hernandez, who already has 15 goals this season.

Colquitt County has been playing girls soccer since 1999 and on three occasions the leading scorer for the season had 12 goals.

Hernandez has scored at least one goal in all but one of the Lady Packers nine matches.

But she is not the only weapon.

Senior Sha Wetherington had 10 goals. Kristin Hall has five. Whitney Hood has added four. And the position handled by Sarah Tyndall and freshman Abbey Taylor has contributed five goals, with Tyndall scoring three and Taylor chipping in a pair.

“I feel confident that with those five, we are going to get some scoring opportunities,” Jarvis said.

And Wetherington and Hall are proficient enough on getting back on defense, that they often get the ball back quickly to start another attack, Jarvis said.

The Colquitt County boys won just one of their first four matches, but after a tough 1-0 overtime loss at home to Valdosta on Feb. 21, the Packers have gone 4-1.

A 2-1 victory at Lowndes on March 7 was a morale-builder as the Packers rallied from a 1-0 deficit to get a pair of Matt DeMott goals in the final 20.

The Packers are coming off a 2-1 victory at Coffee on Friday in which DeMott and Spencer Clayton contributed goals.