By Jimmy LaRoue / Scrimmageplaycva.com contributor
VIRGINIA BEACH – In the end, Charlottesville was, indeed, glad to be there, even if the result didn’t come close to approximating its state title dreams.
A season of major milestones for the Black Knights ended with their most lopsided loss of the season, a 7-1 defeat Friday in the Group AA/A field hockey semifinals to Region I runners-up Chancellor at the National Training Center.
Looking for its third state championship but first since 2006, Chancellor (19-4) takes on four-time defending state champions Tabb (23-0), which defeated the Chargers in the Region I final 2-1 in overtime. Tabb advanced to the final with an 8-0 win over Region II runners-up Fauquier.
Still, the Black Knights, can point to their best-ever record, at 15-4 and a win over powerhouse Western Albemarle in the Jefferson District championship game – its first win in three tries this season against the Warriors.
And, as the No. 3 seed, the Black Knights advanced to their first-ever state semifinal as Region II champions – yet another first.
They did manage one more first, a goal in a state semifinal from sophomore Region II player of the year Kendall Ballard, but it came well after the contest had been decided.
Charlottesville was in trouble early and often against Chancellor on the lightning fast artificial turf – a surface that gave the Black Knights trouble and played a role in several injuries – the most severe looked to be to senior defender Hollis Camp late in the first half. Marie Schneider, senior forward Maddy Eure and German exchange student Marie Theres Schneider, who scored 11 goals and tallied 12 assists this season, also suffered injuries.
“This is a new experience for everybody,” said second-year Black Knights coach Lindsay Clark. “I think I have only a couple of players who’ve played on AstroTurf, so it definitely was going to be a bit of a disadvantage being new, but at the same time, we were hoping it was going to be a bit of an advantage that nobody knew about us so that maybe we could catch them off-guard.”
Chancellor coach Jim Larkin admitted that, besides Ballard, he didn’t know a lot about the Black Knights.
“[We wanted to] take that first five minutes of the game and see how they were going to play, and respond to how they would play and we just had to adjust accordingly,” Larkin said.
Chargers midfielder Katherine Hull scored just over three minutes into the game. Less than two minutes later, a goal from defender Kenzie Neylon put Chancellor up 2-0 and prompted Clark to call a timeout to settle her team.
“Chancellor is a phenomenal team,” Clark said. “They came out really quick on us and we were a little frazzled by it. But once we got into it, I thought we played a good first half.”
The timeout seemed to settle the Black Knights, and despite Chancellor’s 11-0 advantage on corners and 7-0 advantage on shots, the margin remained just two goals at halftime.
“We weren’t crisp in the first half,” Larkin said. “We were good from the 25 to the 25, and didn’t really allow any penetration. But in the circle, our shots and passes were weak.”
But once again, the Black Knights gave up an early goal to start the second half, as Weiland scored just over two minutes into the second half off the first of three assists from Chargers’ forward Chelsea Galera, a constant menace down the right side.
Ten minutes later, Galera set up a goal from forward Chloe Fernandez and then scored unassisted within a span of 16 seconds. Two minutes later, Galera set up forward Katie Colley’s goal.
Ballard then scored off a corner from senior midfielder Emily Lichtenberger. It was the Black Knights’ first corner, first shot and first goal in the game, and in a state semifinal, cutting the lead to 6-1.
“That’s the heart of this team,” Clark said. “No matter what the score is, they still play.”
Chancellor tacked on yet one more goal from forward Ashanti Wright to close out the game.
With the taste of success this season, Clark hopes to build off of Ballard and a team that returns 19 players next year. She hopes to have more players training in the off-season.
“This isn’t the end,” Clark said. “It’s the end for … our seniors, but we’re just getting started here at Charlottesville.”
She hopes to continue building around Ballard, as the standout midfielder finished the season with 21 goals and 10 assists and was the player that caught Larkin’s attention before and during the match as someone to key on.
“She’s the reason why we’ve been able to take leaps and bounds,” Clark said. “Without her, we’d be doing baby steps, as far as [trying] to focus on getting a winning season or beating a couple of teams. Instead, we’re thinking bigger dreams now because of her.”
