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Region ticket punched: Charlottesville boys soccer takes down E.C. Glass

Photo: Ashley Thornton

It’s the nature of playing in May. Weather makes it more interesting than it already needs to be. The Charlottesville’s boys soccer team was pouring it on early with E.C. Glass in the Conference 23 semifinals, but had no goals to show for it. And then a lightning delay struck. It took a bit for the Black Knights get to rolling, but with steady pressure, the dam eventually broke.

 

With a dominant second half, Charlottesville punched its ticket to the Region 4A North tournament with a 3-0 win in front of an appreciative home crowd.

 

“In that situation you’d always like to go into the locker with a lead because you never know how the other team comes out — we’ve been up one before and had teams come out on fire and come at you like a ton of bricks and you don’t know what to do.” said Charlottesville coach Stephan Cost. “So we talked about making our first pass be our best pass, our first touch our best touch, first run be your best run. That’s all you can do. Once you do those things you can settle into the rhythm of the game and things start working for you.”

 

After three shots on goal in the first eight minutes of play, Charlottesville looked to on the cusp of breaking through, but after a lightning delay caused a 30 minute delay, the Black Knights had to find a way to find their form again. The first ten minutes out of the break saw some adjustments and while Charlottesville dominated the midfield, the shots on goal weren’t there like they were in the first half.

 

Of course, that was until Evan Blow and Abibi Osman set up a rebound for Alex Pfister to put in and make it 1-0 with 7:57 left in the first.

 

“Evan hit it to Abibi and his shot just hit off the post and it was just a rebound straight in front of me,” Pfister said. “I was just in front of the goal so I put it away.”

 

For Cost, that was the breaking point. With a flawless Jefferson District record, Charlottesville has seen its scoring come in spurts. Monday evening was no different.

 

“We were building to it and we knew if we got one, we’d get more because that’s how our season’s been,” Cost said. “We feel it out and then its dunk, dunk, dunk.”

 

In the second half, Charlottesville’s midfield dominance continued, with Black Knights goalkkeeper Ryan Herbert only needing to make a pair of saves. On the flip side, Blow set up Campbell Brickhouse who roofed a shot from point blank with 29:39 to go and make it 2-0 game.

 

“Once we got into our rhythm we were able to dominate the game,” Pfister said. “The other goals were better goals, showcased our play. We forced our play onto them.”

 

The Black Knights delivered one last blow with just over 17 minutes left when Pfister earned a free kick close in and then found the top shelf to put the scoring to rest at 3-0.

 

“It’s nice to come out and show competition like this that we’re not just flukes for all the games we’ve won,” Pfister said. “We’ll enjoy this and move on to the next one now.”

 

With the win, Charlottesville will host the conference championship on Wednesday at 7 p.m. with Liberty Christian Academy.

 

“This is the last year we get to play these teams with the conferences breaking up next year and we got to see all of them in the regular season and it was great because it’s been really good competition for what’s a very competitive region,” Cost said. “That’s what need. We need to see the best teams possible before whenever should we head up to Loudoun County.”

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