NORTHAMPTON — Already ahead 3-0 against rival Amherst, the Northampton girls soccer team set up to take a corner kick about midway through the second half.

Blue Devils sophomore Lilah Sage sat at the back post when the ball came hurling toward her. Sage took a touch and crossed it through to the middle, hoping to find a teammate’s foot. Instead an Amherst defender deflected the ball, sending it into their own goal to make it 4-0.

The one play summarized the Hurricanes’ evening, as their defense was on its heels for the majority of the 80 minutes on Wednesday night. The host Blue Devils defended home turf in the rain and under the lights with a 5-0 victory, improving their record to a perfect 7-0 this fall.

“I thought Amherst played a really physical game, and they were in it the whole time, but our girls showed up for the full 80 and played our game,” Northampton head coach Vanessa Butynski said. “We played for possession, we were able to get balls out to in, get to the end line and finish. I really felt that, even with all the pressure Amherst was giving, we focused on our game plan and executed.”

It looked as if the ball was on a string when possessed by the Blue Devils on Wednesday. Their combinations between midfielders Allie Sullivan, Eleanor Lewis, Teagan McDonald, Lilah Sage and several others were crisp, the ball barely ever resting as they passed swiftly to one another.

That movement led to open gaps to send in through balls to the box, and Northampton took advantage when the opportunities presented themselves.

Amherst head coach Jonatan Hernandez was impressed by the opposition, stating his group simply got beat by a better team.

“Our girls fought to the very end, and we didn’t give up so I’m proud of them for that,” Hernandez said. “[Northampton] is a great team. They’re really strong, they knew what they wanted to do and they played the ball very well. They’re very composed and organized, so kudos to them for being a great team.”

Junior Margaux Galvin got the scoring started, quickly followed by a Sullivan goal assisted by Sage just three minutes later. Willow Claps made it 3-0 late in the first half, converting on a pass from Olive Little where Claps out-ran a Hurricane defender and buried a shot in the bottom left of the goal.

The scoring barrage in the blink of an eye is something Northampton has come to expect. The Blue Devils have scored four goals or more in all but one of their games, a 2-0 win over Southwick last week. They’ve scored 12, nine, eight and seven goals in games already this season.

And they do it by committee, making it that much harder to game plan for.

“It’s fantastic,” Butynski said, referring to her influx of goal scorers. “We started the season talking as a team about how it’s going to take all 18 of us to not just win a game, but stay in it every single game. They’re doing a really great job of distributing, because if you have one player, it becomes easy to shut down. If you have a whole team, it’s really hard to beat. And we have the whole team.”

The aforementioned own goal kicked off scoring in the second half before Little buried the final tally of the game off one of those patented Northampton through balls from McDonald.

Those plays, which the Blue Devils were chock-full of on Wednesday, have become a staple about halfway through their season.

“We’ve been focusing on our bounce play, and not being so direct,” Butynski said. “So you saw tonight us working the ball a little bit before we find those through balls. It’s been a huge thing in our training, and the girls do a great job of identifying the overload situations, the 2-v-1s, and utilizing them. They’re getting more comfortable with combination play, and it’s starting to look really pretty.”

Sure, a 7-0 start is one thing. But Northampton is beating teams soundly. The Blue Devils have outscored opponents 47-4 so far this season, and they’ve recorded now four shutouts.

Amherst had its best chance to put one past Blue Devils keeper Anna Oravec with about 24 minutes left in the game. Forward Maeve Fitzgerald got behind the defense and had a free look on goal. Fitzgerald fired a shot that slipped through the hands of Oravec, but the sophomore goalie turned around and scooped the ball up before it crossed the line to preserve the blank score sheet.

The Hurricanes — a young team top to bottom — had their moments on Wednesday, and that’s plenty of positive reinforcement for Hernandez.

“We’ve got some work to do, but we’re on the younger side,” Hernandez said. “We’re trying to get to that next level, and we showed positive signs tonight. We want to strive to be the best we can be, so if this (Northampton) is what a good team looks like around the area, that’s where we want to be. It’s good for our players to see at a young age what a good team looks like. It gives us reassurance that we can get to that point because we’re so young.”

Both teams return to the field on Friday, with Amherst (3-4) hosting Chicopee at 4:30 p.m. and Northampton traveling to Granby for a 5 p.m. bout with the Rams.