Four years ago, the Albemarle boys soccer team cruised by Colonial Forge for the program’s first ever state title. Two years later, the Patriots made a run to the Group 5A championship game only to come up one goal short of another title. The Class of 2016 wanted one more crack at it. And on Saturday, less than 24-hours after their drubbing of Hickory, Albemarle got just that. In a rematch of the Region 5A championship, facing Falls Church for the second time this year, the Patriots cashed in. This was not the victory lap kind of game in 2012, not the heartbreaker like in 2014. No, the 2016 Patriots finished with what was a hard fought defensive battle, beating the Jaguars 1-0 to earn the program’s second state championship in five tries.
“Nobody really knows how hard we worked (for this) except for us,” said Albemarle coach Jeff Balnave. “We’re happy, we’re proud, we’re excited and we’re exhausted. It was just a fantastic season and the boys did all the work and deserve all the credit. I couldn’t be prouder as a coach.”
The start of the game had a little bit of déjà vu all over again from Friday with the Patriots earning a PK in the opening minutes. But whereas the Eagles folded after Albemarle converted the previous day, the Jaguars found a way to rise to the occasion as goalkeeper Emanuel Vargas came up with a stop on Albemarle’s Brendan Moyers, who struck the ball well to the top right side, but to no avail.
“I felt crushed missing a PK in the finals for my team,” Moyers said. “I let them down and I knew I had to keep my head up and keep at it.”
From there, it was a battle between goalies. Vargas made another crucial stop off a header from a corner 11 minutes in. Nine minutes later it was Albemarle’s Jake Gelnovatch’s turn to come up big, and he did so in diving fashion. The Patriots had a pair of chances snuffed out by Vargas with nine minutes left in the first and the Jaguars unable to beat Gelnovatch two minutes later.
“Jake was huge, the whole team was huge,” Balnave said. “Michael Vaughn, the center back, Grant Kersey, Matt Balcells, Kevin Jacobson, all the guys that (played defense), they’re just the best.”
In the second half, things finally broke for Albemarle. It seemed only fitting that Moyers would find himself in this situation after the start of the game. The senior captain was on the far right side of the goal line and worked through a defender and then found the smallest of holes on an almost zero angle shot to beat Vargas and make it 1-0 just over six minutes into the second.
“I was driving down the sideline and saw the keeper was thinking I was going to cut it back to one of my teammates,” Moyers said. “I saw him open up his legs a bit so I said no, I’m going to shoot this one. It went under.”
After the goal, Falls Church’s Vagner Margues-Rodriguez had a break away that was met with another Gelnovatch save.
The Patriots hardly sat back on their lead. Michael Vaughn, just nearly missed on a pair of free kicks from the 18.
“We couldn’t just fall back and all play defense, we had to stay true to our game,” Moyers said. “We had to keep it up on offense, keep putting pressure on them, make sure they couldn’t play balls over top of us.”
The Albemarle defense hung tough during the last 17 minutes with Gelnovatch providing three more saves down the stretch, and maybe none bigger than when he came out of the net and flew in the air to end a threat on a broke play upfront with six minutes remaining. He finished with six on the day.
“It was the final nail in the coffin, I think,” Gelnovatch said. “They were pushing down the field the way you do when you’re down 1-0 late. We got through, we pushed through. It’s a relief. There was a lot of pressure on us coming into this tournament and we got it done.”
And with a free kick coming to Falls Church right in the home stretch, official time was called before the Jaguars were able to execute a play, thus securing the Patriots the state title they came so close to winning two years ago.
“This feels so much better than that sophomore year,” Moyers said. “Words can’t explain it.”
After accepting the state championship trophy, while the Patriots were posing for photos, they were awarded another by the VHSL, the league’s Sportmanship Award. In Group 5A tournament where sportsmanship suffered greatly in the semifinals, Albemarle (21-1) rose above the ruckus to keep calm and truly earn the honor in what was nothing short of a wild weekend in Burke.
“These seniors are the best and there’s no other way to put it,” Balnave said.
