The goal is to secure the ultimate reward in June. For now, the Albemarle boys soccer team will settle for stealing a page from March Madness.
Some of the greatest defensive-minded coaches in basketball history would approve of the fashion in which the Patriots use one facet of the game to generate results in another.
That was apparent Friday night at AHS used relentless defensive pressure and ultimately produced a 6-0 victory over Orange County in a showdown between a pair of Commonwealth District foes.
“The mentality is to just press, kind of like a full-court press in basketball,” Albemarle coach Scott Jackson said. “I think the kids from Orange were playing hard, but we have told our kids that we are deep this year and that we are lucky in that regard.
“We have a lot of good players at our school and if you need a break we are going to give you one.”
Rotating players on the field, however, did not slow the Patriots’ attack and merely aided the effort as four seniors combined to score the six goals in the match. Rowen Perry and Victor Zarate scored two goals apiece and Gokhan Yetim and Asa Vegodsky pushed individual shots past the Hornets goalkeeper in the first meeting between the two schools since Orange was promoted to the Group AAA level.
As was the case against North Stafford earlier this month, defensive breakdowns by Orange led to quality chances for the opposition.
“We are trying to overcome the tendency of going to the ball like a moth to the flame. It killed us [against Albemarle] and it has so far this season,” Orange County coach Dewayne Pugh said. “One of the things is, in trying to get the adjustments that we made, if you can’t pressure up the ball, you have to mark the man up even as they possessit.
“We have emphasized marking runs in the offensive-third of the field, but when teams are very good at possessing and they move it up quickly … if you can’t pressure the ball then you should be marking a man.”
Missed assignments after the first 15 minutes let Albemarle seal the result long before light rain started falling with 16 minutes remaining. In the final minutes of the contest, despite slippery conditions, the Patriots reached another level on defense to secure a
second straight shutout.
“I think towards the end of the game the defenders realized that they wanted to keep the goose egg up there,” Jackson said, noting that the defense was solid recently against Riverbend in a 2-0 decision.
“We are trying to get them to trust each other a little bit more when they play. The talent is there and it’s just a matter of getting them comfortable with each other and trusting each other on the field.”
A year after going 11-7-1, Orange is looking to make daily strides before the postseason arrives. Despite having 13 seniors on the roster, the Hornets are admittedly a work in progress.
“We have the opportunity and I was telling them after the game that,‘Listen guys, we have to make the adjustments that we can and realize that we can get to the middle of the pack for tournament time and then you play someone around your level,’” Pugh recounted. “And then it is the old little giant kind of thing where 99 times out of 100 they are going to beat us, but one time it could be us and it would get us to regional play.”
AHS has different expectations at this stage with a host of veterans and pair of players on the roster headed to play soccer at the collegiate level.
“I think we were humbled a little bit in our first league game when we lost to [Colonial] Forge 2-1,” Jackson said. “We had a lot of the possession in that one but we didn’t have the hunger to finish and they finished well.
“I think we will see how far the season goes, but the kids have a lot of potential. We are excited to see how it plays out.”
