Western Albemarle’s girls soccer team has been under siege by injuries but that hasn’t deterred the Warriors’ senior duo of Sarah Grupp and Alexis Hucek all year. Wednesday they wanted to wrap up senior night and their final regular season home game in Crozet with a win.
The Warriors got the job done against Fluvanna County, beating the Flucos 1-0, scoring once amid a barrage of shots that were shut down by Fluvanna keeper Morgan Symmers.
“I would’ve liked it for it to be a greater score but at least we won,” Grupp said.
Nichole Heon provided the game-winner in the early stages of the second half, ending a fruitless string of chances that finished just short of a goal and often ended in the hands of Symmers, the Flucos’ talented junior keeper.
“I think we really need to work on aiming where we’re finishing,” Grupp said. “But Morgan was doing a great job so you’ve just got to stay relentless.”
The Flucos also did an excellent job of pushing up and forcing a rash of offsides calls on Western that ended potential breakaway chances before they got started.
“That’s definitely part of our game — to keep our shape compacted,” said Fluvanna coach Kristin Davis. “We got a little tired at the end and we were struggling with some of the gaps. But definitely the first half was our gameplan and we had the opportunities we just didn’t finish.”
Western continued managing to solve the Flucos’ attack and create chances for the offense. Facing Symmers was a good piece of preparation for the Warriors (13-3) as they start getting focused on postseason play with the Conference 29 tournament looming next week. That’s been a part of the plan all year though for Western.
“It’s good practice because we know a lot of the shots would’ve gone in against a different keeper but we had a lot of different chances we just didn’t finish,” Hucek said. “I think we’ve kept the postseason in mind our entire season. We treat all our games as practice and (a chance) to get better.”
Western has even logged a lot of practice time on a grass practice field in an effort to get comfortable with that surface, as they’ll play on that throughout Conference 29 and, potentially, 3A West play.
The Warriors’ senior class also includes injured standouts Rachel Cooke and Fiona Fittro.
Fluvanna faces Powhatan on the road before jumping into Conference 23 tournament play while the Warriors get a break before conference play.
