Charlottesville boys lacrosse attackman Will Werner, who’d set the school career goals record during the second half, wanted to run something different coming out of the timeout before the first possession of overtime.
“They all wanted to run (a certain play) but we’d already run it and scored so I was like nah, nah, nah, let’s not do it, let’s do this,” Werner said. “And that ended up falling apart and then we ran the other one and we scored.”
Nick Pahuta scored his seventh goal of the game off the second play, lifting Charlottesville to a 16-15 victory over Monticello in the Charlottesville Conference semifinals just two days after the Black Knights beat the Mustangs in another overtime game to close the regular season.
“After we didn’t get the first look, we did (a different play) down (on the other end) and they didn’t pick me up the first time so we just tried to run it again,” Pahuta said. “It wasn’t any different that time, they didn’t pick me up at all so I was wide open. I just put it in there.”
Pahuta’s goal came just minutes after the Black Knights watched Monticello erase a 12-2 halftime deficit to tie the game in a wild, back-and-forth affair. Charlottesville had everything working in the first half as a penalty-plagued Monticello squad opened the door and the Black Knights burst through it to the tune of the 10-goal halftime advantage. Five different scorers got in on the act too as Charlottesville scored in transition, on man-up advantages and in their set offense.
That came apart at the seams in the second half though as Monticello exploded with Austin Haverstrom winning nearly 10 chances in a row that helped take an already percolating comeback into overdrive. Monticello chipped away in the third and cut the Charlottesville lead to 15-10 with an 8-3 advantage to start the second half and Haverstrom scored back-to-back to pull Monticello within two goals. Paxton Jolly, Bryan Young and longstick midfielder Daniel Hummel all got in on the act during the comeback, with Jolly scoring three while Young and Hummel scored four each. Finally with 1:28 left, Hummel scored his fourth and tied the game at 15-15.
After withstanding the last 88 seconds and getting to overtime, Charlottesville regrouped.
“We have a couple of really strong seniors who’ve been through it all, we’ve been through the last two years which have been rebuilding years,” Werner said. “We worked too hard to go out like this.”
Werner and the Black Knights appeared much more relaxed to start overtime and a faceoff win and a quick timeout setup Pahuta’s heroics.
“We just got back to that first half where we were up 12-2, we got that mindset back,” Pahuta said
Werner scored four times and had an assist, including Charlottesville’s 14th goal that gave him the school’s career goals record to go with his school career scoring record mark that he reached earlier this season. Ephraim Antwi scored two goals and dished out an assist. Aidan Hockett had a goal and an assist and Tom Stadler finished with a goal and three assists. Ashton Wenzel also had a goal for the Black Knights.
Haverstrom finished with four assists to go with his two goals. Young also had two assists.
The Black Knights earn a spot in the region tournament and a berth in the Charlottesville Conference championship game next week.
