Colonial Forge coach Julie Spinelli couldn’t have been more happy with the first half results — her team built up a solid lead and dominated the time of possession battle. And with the second half playing out evenly, that wound up being the difference as the Eagles were able to jump on Albemarle early and hold off an early second half surge from the Patriots in a 4-2 win.
“We had to keep our momentum,” Spinelli said. “The first goal (Albemarle) scored fired our girls up. We knew that this was a game again and had to put two more back quickly in the cage.”
While there was no scoring for the first 15 minutes of play, Forge spend almost the entire time hammering away at Albemarle on the offensive end and at the 15 minute mark, watched senior captain Kathlee Namey put her team out in front 1-0. Just a few minutes later, Namey struck again on a clean up shot in front of the cage to make 2-0.
“We’ve been working a lot on the transfer and it was nice to see it work out in the game,” Spinelli said. “Our forwards our great, they’re quick and fast on the ball.”
In the last seven minutes of first half play, Albemarle’s offense finally came to life with Kira Aglio just missing at a chance to cut in the deficit in half. That had to wait until the second half when the Patriots came out a completely different looking team, just missing once again at a goal within the first 90 seconds of play, but making it a 2-1 game after Aglio hit home a shot on a pass from Kali Carroll.
“The first 25 minutes of the game we looked lost out there,” said Albemarle coach E.A. Jackson. “We’re going to have to come back and work on our fitness level.”
The Patriots nearly equalized things when Carroll got a shot off on a breakaway with 21 minutes to play, but the Eagles reclaimed a 2-goal lead two minutes later. The middle of the second half again belonged to Forge as they peppered Albemarle with shots and went up 4-1.
In the last five minutes of the game, Albemarle played like it did during the first five of the half, getting in transition and getting shots on net. Just inside of four minutes to play, Kendall Coffman scored on a broken short corner on passes from Paige Northup and Corroll to make it 4-2. The Eagles squatted on their lead though and kept Albemarle at bay to finish out the game.
Emily Latham made 15 saves on the night for the Patriots.
While this the third game of the year for Forge (3-0, 1-0 Commonwealth District) it was the first contest of the year for the Patriots who were playing their first contest on field turf. Learning to play on the home turf and also be prepared to the grass that they are used to is a focal point for Jackson who is looking for her team to adapt to the faster nature of play that the turf promotes.
“This is the first time we’ve been on (our) turf at all, we haven’t been able to practice on it,” Jackson said. “It’s a different game on the turf versus the grass and so the fitness level plays a big part and I hope we improve on that. I saw it a bit this when we played Monticello on its turf because getting in good position on defense. Tonight for the first 25 minutes we looked panicked and I think we realize, ‘Oh, we can attack the ball too.’ That’s when they picked it up.”
Albemarle (0-1, 0-1 CD) looks to bounce back at new Commonwealth opponent Orange County today at 7 p.m.
