It’s perhaps one of the oldest sports clichés, but the fact is, beating a team three times in a season is very tough.
Try beating them three times in six days like Charlottesville just did against Western Albemarle in boys lacrosse.
“Western is a very good team, I wasn’t looking forward to playing three times in one week,” said Charlottesville coach Drew Craft. “I’m really proud of the way the guys rose to the occasion and possessed the ball.”
In the teams’ second clash, Charlottesville had to withstand a fourth quarter run by the Warriors but this time the Black Knights controlled the entire run of the game en route to an 8-3 victory, closing out the Warriors with a strong second half. The victory gave the Black Knights a berth in the West Central Section tournament and Friday night’s West Central Division title game against Albemarle, the squad that handed the Black Knights their only two division losses on the year.
The Black Knights got a huge lift going into halftime when Jack McCarthy buried a tough shot with eighth tenths of a second left in the second quarter to put CHS up 3-1.
“It was a set play we had and sometimes you draw it up and it works perfectly,” Craft said. “That was one of those times.”
McCarthy and Willis Bocock both notched hat tricks to lead the Black Knights offensively while Casey Devine rounded out the scoring with a pair of goals.
Freshman keeper Austin Hall continued a solid season with a nine-save effort for the Black Knights. Western managed to outshoot Charlottesville 30-28 but struggled to put the ball on the cage. Nick Vial, Schuyler Dickerson and Thomas Dudley had the Warriors’ three goals.
Ben Carew finished with 11 saves on the night for Western.
Western, despite a precipitous slide in the second half of the season, still has a chance at a section tournament berth in the consolation against Monticello Friday night.
