SMITHFIELD - SMITHFIELD -- Clayton's girls soccer team made things easy on Thursday night, doing the same things they have done all year to do something they’ve never done before.

The Comets rolled to the Greater Neuse 4-A Conference regular-season championship in a 5-0 win over Smithfield-Selma.

It was the Comets’ eighth shutout win of the season.

After surviving a near-comeback by the Spartans in their first match up three weeks ago, Clayton got a pair of goals from leading scorer Libby Orsega in the first 22 minutes and didn’t look back on the way to the title.

“Our program’s made a lot of great strides in the past three, four years,” said Clayton coach Sena Maziarz. “They deserve it. These girls have worked hard all year long. We did what we needed to do and it feels good.”

The Comets will host rounds of the GNRC tournament as long as it continues to win. The event will conclude Thursday night.

Clayton improved their record to 16-6 with their fourth win in a row. Clayton finished at 13-1 in the conference, a half-game ahead of Garner (12-1-1). The Comets are guaranteed at least two home games during the NCHSAA playoffs. Smithfield-Selma fell to 8-8-1 overall and finishes the regular season 5-7-1 in conference play.

“We haven’t been able to put everything together lately,” said Smithfield-Selma coach Matthew Coates. “It’s frustrating because we’ve got a lot of seniors that want to do well. They really busted their butt up and down the field but we just haven’t been able to do what we needed to do.”

Cali Mudd scored the third goal for the Comets in the 27th minute to give Clayton a 3-0 lead that would hold until halftime.

Smithfield missed its best chance to get on the board when they were awarded a penalty kick late in the first half but couldn’t convert. They would hit the post in the initial minutes of the second half.

“Hats off to them,” said Coates. “To play Clayton is always a big game so you never want to do less than your best.”

Morgan Lane scored just three minutes into the second half to give her team a 4-0 lead while Skylar Poole scored almost 20 minutes later for the final tally.

Olivia Baumgartner had her third straight game without giving up a goal in net.

“We possessed the ball as much as we could but not as much as we would have liked,” said Maziarz. “But the girls worked hard and they want it.”