Headlines

Western boys soccer earns state bid, edge Rockbridge in Region 3A West semi’s

Despite a couple of hiccups, the Western Albemarle boys soccer team dominated the first half. The Warriors poured it on offensively, possessed the ball for the majority of the first 40 minutes and were able to built a reasonably comfortable lead. But Rockbridge was a different kind of fighter. The Wildcats defense bent but did not break in the second half. In the end, the Warriors never trailed, but the 4-3 victory in Region 3A West semifinals, one that put them back into the state tournament for the second time in three years, was closer than they would have liked.

 

“We eked one out,” said Western coach Milo Oakland. “You get into the region semifinals playing for a state berth and I think you tighten up a little bit. You don’t play the way you would have liked to play, but you’re happy with the win.”

 

Just seconds into the game, Jake Paulson flew through the Wildcats defense and earned a corner after nearly scoring. On that corner, Paulson found Aiden Sinclair on a cross and the Warriors’ leading scorer headed home the goal with the save being initially made but Rockbridge goalkeeper Greg Brown unable to keep his momentum from taking he and the ball into the goal. That made it 1-0 just 60 seconds in. While Western continued to control the pace of the game, saves were made and shots flew high or wide.

 

“I thought we came out playing really well, but all of the sudden the level went down,” Paulson said. “We were allowing them to get back in the game.”

 

With 19.45 left in the first, Rockbridge got of its first shot of the game, and Ely Spencer made the most of the opportunity to even things up 1-1. That was the beginning of a crazy back-and-forth for the next ten minutes. It took five minutes to answer, once again on a corner. There Paulson tried for sophomore Alex Moreno, whose header glanced off a Wildcat defender’s leg and trickled into the net. Two minutes later, Rockbridge got its second shot off, and again scored, this time with Kirk Waller connecting from outside to again even things up at 2-2. Western answered quickly with Sinclair playing a perfect ball at midfield to Paulson who was flying down the field. Paulson buried the shot in the one-on-one situation and Western had a 3-2 lead.

 

“I was pretty pleased with the way played offensively in that we were getting the opportunities, but it’s hard to get over the fact we just kept allowing them to back in the game, over and over again,” Paulson said. “We capitalized and scored four goals in the first half, it should not have been this close of a game. They say defense wins championships. Today it didn’t, we only played offensively and managed to come out with the win. Hopefully we come out on Monday and play well both offensively and defensively.”

 

With eight minutes left, Paulson worked down the middle of the field, found Daniel Forsman who in turn hit Moreno on the left wing. Moreno picked up his second goal and the Warriors looked poised to cruise with a 4-2 lead.

 

“Alex brought a lot of energy, he was a spark,” Paulson said. “He was able to get us back up the field and came up with that goal to put us up 4-2 and that was huge.”

 

But the big problem was that Rockbridge refused to cooperate in the second on both sides of the ball. After outshooting the Wildcats 10-2 in the first half, the Warriors won that battle again in the second at 8-3, but saw Brown come up with save after save to keep the game close. Conversely, 10 minutes into the second half, Thomas Harbor punched in a perfect header off a cross from Spencer and the Wildcats cut the deficit to 4-3.

 

“They came out (in the second) with more energy than us and were playing like their season was on the line,” Oakland said. “I thought Colin Moore, our center-mid played a great game against Habor. We had a couple of great individual plays on defense but as a team, we did not play well defensively.”
From there, things were more to-and-fro than in the first half with Western continuing to get its chances and Rockbridge finding more success in creating offense. Warriors keeper Jonathan Whyte made his presence felt with 25 minutes left with a diving save on a well-struck ball. Although it was tense, particularly within the final two minutes, Western was able to hang on and wrap up the win.

Comments

comments