Over the years when Fluvanna and Western Albemarle lock up in soccer, be it in girls soccer or boys soccer, you can almost always expect a battle.
Thursday’s latest edition of the boys rivalry was no exception as Western fought tooth and nail to pull out a 2-1 victory over the Flucos. Both squads are now in Conference 29 so the game could potentially be a conference tournament preview.
“We knew that coming in and we talked about that this is one that we wanted to make sure this was one we were prepared for,” said Western coach Milo Oakland.
The pre-Spring Break contest pitted the Flucos’ star midfielder Carter Allbaugh against a Western defense that was determined to prevent him from igniting the Fluvanna offense. The Warriors were solid against Allbaugh who is headed to James Madison next year to play soccer.
“Carter Allbaugh is a fantastic player and I think I’m most proud of, it’s that our central mids did a good job of sort of neutralizing him,” Oakland said. “That’s a testament to him because it was really a team effort to try and slow him down and make them more one dimensional on offense.”
With the defense stepping up and holding Fluvanna scoreless until deep in the second half, the Warriors managed to do enough offensively to hold the Flucos at arm’s length. Andrew Kunkel scored with a little more than seven minutes left in the first half on a Santiago Campos-Lopez assist. Then 10 minutes into the second half, Aidan Sinclair scored off a Colin Moore assist to make it 2-0 Western.
A pretty chippy game got chippier from there as both sides looked to squeeze the slightest advantage as both defenses looked to lock things down. Western managed to keep the Flucos from scoring until an ill-advised clearance opened the door for Matt Rafaly, who lasered home a shot to pull the Flucos within one with 3:52 remaining.
“That was a rocket, a beautiful shot,” Oakland said.
Fluvanna couldn’t find the equalizer though and fell by the one-goal margin, a solid result for a squad that’s still putting the pieces together.
“This was by far the best effort we’ve put forth this season,” said Fluvanna coach Earl Gibson. “We haven’t had a lot of games but I learned what we’re capable of when we show up for a full 80 minutes. This is a positive for us, absolutely.”
Both squads enter spring break now, with Western playing Charlottesville on April 11 while the Flucos play Powhatan Thursday.
