The immediately recognizable names for Albemarle’s boys lacrosse team are few and far between. There’s explosive scorer Lorenz Brown. There’s lockdown defender Brice Green.
After that, there’s a bunch of guys who have a lot to prove.
You can check toughness off as one thing they’ve proven after the Patriots withstood a huge surge by Western Albemarle to snag a critical 15-13 victory in a rivalry clash with the Warriors Tuesday night.
“We’re a lot of unknowns which is why we look at each other and we’re like ‘who are we, what are we going to do here?’,” said Albemarle coach Dave King. “But that’s the effort we’ve been looking for.”
Brown managed to score a pair of goals and dish out two critical assists while drawing a lot of attention from the Western defense. But that attention he drew played a big role in opening things up for Sam Mallow and Silas Beers. Beers notched a hat trick while Mallow led the Albemarle attack with four goals. He got Albemarle’s scoring started with a big-time finish in the first quarter, dropping his shoulder, bowling over a defender before unleashing a strike.
“I was thinking about my brother (Joe Mallow) because he wore this number (22) last year and he was a hard hitter,” Mallow said. “I wanted to make him proud tonight. So I decided to lower the shoulder and finish with a goal.”
Mallow fits the profile for this year’s edition of the not-so-flashy, blue collar Patriots, getting his first shot at extensive playing time as a senior, and against the Warriors he capitalized.
“That’s a guy who’s been in this program who hasn’t played, it’s a lot of guys who are learning on the fly,” King said. “They’re either old (like Mallow) or we’ve got some young guys in there. But there are things that they’re only going to get through a game and more experience.”
While Mallow’s early goal set the tone and helped the Patriots build a 7-3 lead, Western refused to go away easily. Late in the third quarter, Western fought all the way back to tie the game on A.J. Donovan’s fourth goal at 9-9 and then took the lead with 4:17 left in the third on Donovan’s fifth goal to make it 10-9.
“They took it to us tonight, we gave them a lot of opportunities tonight and they took advantage when we did,” said Western coach Alex Whitten. “But my teams always play hard, but they’ve got to couple the effort with the execution. They fight all the way back from down 7-3 and then you’re up 10-9, two penalties, three bad turnovers and you’re down and all of the sudden you’re scrambling again.”
Albemarle counterpunched with some help from those penalties and turnovers, reeling off three straight goals to close the third and take a 12-10 lead. Mateo Maughlin scored two of those three goals, another senior who has worked his way into a significant role for the first time this year.
In the fourth, Albemarle kept the Warriors at arm’s length, with goalie Ryan Richardson, another first-year starter, stepping up in a big way with a three-save sequence that was a huge momentum swing midway through the frame. Richardson finished with 12 saves, withstanding a barrage of 45 shots from the Warriors who held a 45-36 advantage in that category.
“We needed Ryan he’s a heck of a goalie, he puts his heart out there every game,” Mallow said. “Without him that would’ve been a totally different game.”
After Richardson’s stops, Albemarle held on, with Lorenz Brown eventually killing the clock and setting off a celebration for the Patriots.
Albemarle’s Andrew Scanlon finished with three assists for the Patriots while Connor Warner had two goals and an assist. Forrest Warner scored twice for Albemarle.
Donovan’s five goals led the Warriors while James Buetow and John Carr Haden each finished with hat tricks. Will Cory had three assists and a goal while Sam Herndon scored one and Jack Weyher had an assist. Ben Kunkel had eight saves in the cage for Western.
Albemarle held a 19 to 11 advantage on faceoffs.
The Patriots host Monticello Friday night while the Warriors get a week off before hosting Powhatan Wednesday.
