Earlier this season, Western Albemarle boys soccer’s Collin Moore said that he just expects Aidan Sinclair to do crazy, impressive things once or twice per game.
But what Sinclair did Friday at Amherst High in the Group 3A state semifinals was outside even the realm of what his teammates have come to expect. It was unreal no matter what the standards are. In fact, Milo Oakland had to find another word to describe the senior with after a couple of years of talking a lot about the All-Region 3A West first teamer.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever used clutch before, but he pulled out four big goals in 20 minutes,” said Western coach Milo Oakland.
Sinclair scored four goals in the first 20 minutes against James Monroe, a wild explosion that helped push the Warriors to a 6-2 victory and a second shot at Blacksburg, the squad that edged them out in overtime in the Region 3A West final a week ago.
“I think the turf field was a big factor, we tend not to do so well on grass,” Sinclair said. “We got knocked out last year on grass and I think more space allowed our stronger players to take advantage.”
The Warriors wanted to get a fast start in part because lately Western hasn’t been particularly strong out of the gate.
“We’ve been slow coming out in the last two games…against Blacksburg we seemed a little flat,” said Western’s Daniel Forsman. “We had a week to prepare and we just came out with a fearsome mentality.”
Forsman scored the Warriors’ fifth goal during the first half after Sinclair’s run while Jed Strickland scored Western’s sixth on a second half header. James Monroe refused to go away easily despite Sinclair’s early performance that largely put the game out of reach for the Jackets.
“When he puts one in, he starts to feel it,” Forsman said. “Four goals in the state semifinals is incredible.”
Western surrendered a pair of penalty kicks to James Monroe, with one coming before the half and the other in the second. But the cushion Sinclair created prevented the Jackets from rallying as the Western defense largely forced the Jackets into bad shots and the Warriors’ offense stayed on the attack throughout much of the game.
The Warriors’ offense usually operates in a pretty democratic way, avoiding trying to feed just a single player that can make any team one dimensional. That’s part of why Sinclair has put up impressive but not particularly gaudy numbers this year, scoring 24 goals coming into the clash with the Jackets. But Western’s focus in practice this week seemed to directly translate into the fast start and the victory.
“We spent all week working on really finding our strikers’ feet and allowing them to play,” Oakland said.
Western now heads to its second state title game appearance in three years, with a chance to add another state title to the program’s record against Blacksburg at 12:20 p.m. at Liberty Saturday. With a Sinclair performance that called to mind the exploits of current Virginia Tech player Forest White during that run, Western may have found a groove at just the right time.
“Maybe we are calling on some of the 2014 mojo,” Oakland said. “Maybe it’s not all gone yet.”
