Christian Perkins is only a sophomore at Keller High, but he was aware of how much Friday night's 2-1 victory against Southlake Carroll meant to his team.  Perkins scored both goals for the Indians -- in the 18th and 25th minutes -- and Keller held off the Dragons' comeback attempts in a District 7-5A game at the Keller ISD Stadium.

"It's really exhilarating to beat them," Perkins said moments after Keller's postgame huddle broke up. "They won the national championship last year, and the state championship. They're a big rival for us. They're everybody's biggest rival."

It's not the caliber of the Dragons' undefeated Class 5A state champs of a year ago -- this team is 6-4-3, 1-1 -- but Keller coach Jason Bates was happy that his team, at 2-0 in the district (and 5-3 overall), became one of the targeted teams in 7-5A.

"The district is always very tight, so every district win is a big win," Bates said, "but we had a little bit of a grudge with them. They knocked us out of the playoffs last year, so we wanted to come out and prove ourselves a little bit. Obviously we did that. It was fun."

In a game that started an hour earlier than scheduled because of the threat of rain and lightning, Perkins' first goal came when he took in a timely throughball from fellow forward Brandon Castro down the middle and got behind the Carroll defense.

"It was a one-on-one with the keeper," Perkins said. "He came out and I tapped it around him."

On the second goal, Perkins was on the right side when he collected a cross from Jackson Weddle "from 18 yards out. I was right at the penalty spot; the goalie missed the ball and so did another guy and I got it through there."

Carroll coach Greg Oglesby said "they scored a good goal on the first one; they broke us down. The second goal was just a lucky bounce, caromed off a player and he knocked it in."

Those goals offset a 32nd minute strike by Carroll's Winslow Horne, "a laser beam from 40 yards" as Oglesby called it. "The keeper was off his line a bit, so he had no chance."

The second half was a standoff, with Keller goalie Richard Mayse picking off several Carroll freekick and long-chip attempts that were on goal and, most spectacularly, making a last-second punch of a dangerous free kick by Walker Beasley that ended up hitting the crossbar and went over the top of the net.

Oglesby also liked the play of his goalie, Turner Roberts, who kept the Dragons in it by stopping no fewer than four point-blank shots.  "He had a very good game," said Oglesby. "Neither goal was his responsibility, really."

Bates also credited the strong efforts of Castro, whose strength and speed helped him make several strong runs that threatened the Keller defense, and Jared Poling. Poling played an outside midfield position in the first half, then up front to start the second half and finally dropped back into the defensive midfield for the game's last 20 minutes.

"Castro has been hurt, so we had to limit him a little bit tonight, but we had to go with him," Bates said. "He did very well. He's very dangerous and he's slippery for a big guy."

"Both teams fought very hard," Oglesby said. "... We hit a post in the first half, hit the crossbar in the second half. So we had some good chances to score. At the end of the day, they put two in and we put one in." And he noted, "I think they were excited."

"It's very competitive [in the district]," Bates said. "It was a competitive game."