AvaLee Pomper broke open what had been a close game at halftime to help Memphis extend its soccer season.

The junior scored three of her four goals in the second half as the Yellowjackets won a second consecutive district championship with a 5-0 victory over Austin Catholic in a Division 4 final at cloudy and sometimes-rainy Memphis on Friday.

“I can’t believe we went all this way,” Pomper said. “I’m so proud of everyone here. We wanted it so bad.”

Pomper injured a knee in the first half but had no thought of sitting out.

“My mom taped my knee,” she said. “I was like, ‘We’ve got to win.’

“My team was really locked in the second half.”

Pomper scored 30 seconds into the second half to give Memphis a 2-0 lead.

“That gave us a little bit of breathing room,” coach Andrew Rohde said after the Yellowjackets improved to 3-1 in district games against Austin since 2019.

Camryn Derengowski’s goal with 22:54 left made it 3-0, and then Pomper converted a shot with 20:33 to go after dribbling from near midfield to the goal mouth.

“I love dribbling,” Pomper said. “I’d take on their whole team if I could.”

Pomper’s final goal came on a free kick from about 30 yards out. She put the ball in the upper left corner of the goal.

“I’m not gonna lie — that’s not where I was trying to shoot it,” said Pomper, who had a six-goal game earlier in the season. “I was going to try to curl it in. But it felt amazing. I’ve never made a shot like that.”

This season is Pomper’s first at Memphis. She was an online student during the previous school year.

“She’s very, very dangerous with that,” Rohde said, recalling when Pomper dribbled through the defense to score her third goal.

“She’s very unselfish, and she likes to set up other people, but a couple of times today she saw an opportunity, and she went for it. When she got her shots, she did a good job of burying them.”

Pomper scored the only goal of the first half with 21:42 left.

Memphis improved to 14-3-0 and qualified to take on Clarkston Everest in a regional semifinal that starts at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Royal Oak Shrine.

“It feels good to go back-to-back,” Rohde said. “We won last year, and that was the first one after a long stretch with no district championships.”

Austin Catholic finished 5-9-1.

“I’m a little disappointed,” Crusaders coach Carolyn Balzano said. “(Memphis) played an excellent game. They have some key players, and so do we. At times they outworked us, and at times we had the adrenaline on our side.”

Austin had to tap its bench in the second half when multiple players left the game with injuries.

“Sometimes you have those games,” Balzano said. “We were fortunate we had the full 11 on the field for the full 80 minutes.”

Austin defeated Cardinal Mooney and Merritt to reach the district final.

“We got to this game, and I’m proud of the girls for that,” Balzano said.

Tamara Putz was the winning keeper.

The Yellowjackets’ defense made good decisions in front of the goalie, Rohde said.

“They were good on first touches, good at playing the ball up,” the coach said.

Everest won a district title with a 2-1 victory over Oakland Christian on Thursday.

District champs from Shrine and Millington will meet in the other regional semifinal at Shrine.