Man United routs third-division Barnsley 7-0 in English League Cup

MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag savored the “perfect night” after routing third-division Barnsley 7-0 in the English League Cup on Tuesday.

It was United's biggest margin of victory under the Dutchman, who has been in charge for more than two years.

Marcus Rashford, Alejandro Garnacho and Christian Eriksen all scored two goals each in the third round match at Old Trafford, with Antony also on target.

“Not for me, but for the team, this is the perfect night. I think we could do everything that we planned to do. We won, (we are in) next round, scored some great goals, entertained the fans and we worked on our game model, so we are happy,” Ten Hag said.

The size of the victory surpassed United's previous best under Ten Hag: 4-1 wins against Real Betis and Chelsea in his first season at the club. It was the biggest since a 9-0 win over Southampton under former manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in 2021.

Encouragingly for Ten Hag, Rashford's scoring touch appears to have returned after a troubled season last year when he managed just nine goals.

Rashford's double came after he ended a 12-game barren run with a goal against Southampton over the weekend.

“Football is football. Sometimes you have ups and sometimes downs, but we have to use these games to get momentum and consistency," Rashford said.

Garnacho also scored in that 3-0 win in the Premier League and emulated Rashford by making it three goals in his last two games.

Eriksen struck twice late on.

Rashford blasted United in front after cutting inside Marc Roberts in the 16th minute. Antony doubled the lead when winning and then converting a penalty in the 35th.

Garnacho poked home from close range in the second minute of first-half stoppage time.

United overpowered Barnsley after the break with Garnacho scoring his second when racing through on goal in the 49th. Rashford scored again in the 58th.

It was the first time Rashford has scored more than one goal in a game since February 2023.

Eriksen's double came in the 81st and 85th.

Bottom of the Premier League and without a point, Everton’s troubled campaign went from bad to worse after it was eliminated by second-to-last Southampton — losing 6-5 on penalties.

The Merseyside team had taken the lead through Abdoulaye Doucoure in the 20th at Goodison Park, but Taylor Harwood-Bellis evened the game in the 32nd.

Southampton goalkeeper Alex McCarthy saved Ashley Young's penalty in sudden death to seal Everton's fate.

Eberechi Eze struck the winner as Crystal Palace beat second-division Queens Park Rangers 2-1 and Brentford survived an early scare against third-tier Leyton Orient to win 3-1.

Brandon Cooper fired Orient ahead in the 11th, but Fabio Carvalho, Mikkel Damsgaard and Christian Norgaard eased Brentford to victory.

Second-division Preston secured the biggest shock of the night by beating Fulham 16-15 in an epic penalty shootout.

The game ended 1-1 at full time with Ryan Ledson putting Preston ahead in the 35th and Reiss Nelson equalizing for Fulham in the 61st.

What followed was the longest shootout in League Cup history with Preston eventually triumphing after 34 spot kicks.

After 32 penalties were successfully converted, Fulham's Timothy Castagne missed the target and Ledson made no mistake to fire Preston into the fourth round.

It was a different story as Stoke overcame Fleetwood 2-1 on penalties after a 1-1 draw.

Sheffield Wednesday beat Blackpool 1-0.

James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Crystal Palace's Eddie Nketiah, center, celebrates scoring during the English League Cup third round soccer match between Queens Park Rangers QPR and Crystal Palace at the Loftus Road Stadium, London, Tuesday Sept. 17, 2024. (Steven Paston/PA via AP)

Queens Park Rangers' Karamoko Dembele, left, and Crystal Palace's Tyrick Mitchell in action during the English League Cup third round soccer match between Queens Park Rangers QPR and Crystal Palace at the Loftus Road Stadium, London, Tuesday Sept. 17, 2024. (Steven Paston/PA via AP)

Leyton Orient's Sonny Perkins, left, and Brentford's Christian Norgaard battle for the ball during the English League Cup third round soccer match at the Gtech Community Stadium, Brentford, Tuesday Sept. 17, 2024. (John Walton/PA via AP)

Preston North End's Ryan Ledson, center, celebrates scoring during the English League Cup third round soccer match between Preston and Fulham at Deepdale, Preston, England, Tuesday Sept. 17, 2024. (Richard Sellers/PA via AP)

Everton's Michael Keane, left, and Southampton's Adam Armstrong battle for the ball during the English League Cup third round soccer match between Everton and Southampton at Goodison Park, Liverpool, England, Tuesday Sept. 17, 2024. (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)

Manchester United's Alejandro Garnacho is celebrated by Manchester United's Casemiro after scoring his side's fourth goal during the English League Cup soccer match between Manchester United and Barnsley at Old Trafford, Manchester, England, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)

Manchester United's Christian Eriksen celebrates after scoring the 6th goal during the English League Cup soccer match between Manchester United and Barnsley at Old Trafford, Manchester, England, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)

Manchester United's Marcus Rashford after scoring the fifth goal during the English League Cup soccer match between Manchester United and Barnsley at Old Trafford, Manchester, England, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)

Manchester United's Marcus Rashford, top, is tackled by Barnsley's Barry Cotter during the English League Cup soccer match between Manchester United and Barnsley at Old Trafford, Manchester, England, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (Mike Egerton/PA via AP)

Manchester United's head coach Erik ten Hag claps hands prior to the English League Cup soccer match between Manchester United and Barnsley at Old Trafford, Manchester, England, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)

Manchester United's Marcus Rashford scores the opening goal against Barnsley's goalkeeper Gabriel Slonina during the English League Cup soccer match between Manchester United and Barnsley at Old Trafford, Manchester, England, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)

Manchester United's Antony, right, reacts to Manchester United's goalkeeper Altay Bayindir at halftime during the English League Cup soccer match between Manchester United and Barnsley at Old Trafford, Manchester, England, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)

Manchester United's Antony, left, celebrates scoring with Alejandro Garnacho during the English League Cup soccer match between Manchester United and Barnsley at Old Trafford, Manchester, England, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (Mike Egerton/PA via AP)

Manchester United's Alejandro Garnacho celebrates after scoring his side's fourth goal during the English League Cup soccer match between Manchester United and Barnsley at Old Trafford, Manchester, England, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)

Manchester United's Marcus Rashford celebrates with Manchester United's Alejandro Garnacho, left, after scoring the fifth goal during the English League Cup soccer match between Manchester United and Barnsley at Old Trafford, Manchester, England, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)