Western Albemarle keeper Rives Cowen had a rough outing against Monticello last week and needed to bounce back in the semifinals of West Central Division tournament.
“Both of my goalies (Cowen and Andrew Dickinson) are really, really good,” said Western coach Alex Whitten. “We wanted to give (Cowen) the start tonight because he’s been playing well for us all year and he stopped the ball really well in the first half.”
Cowen bounced back in fantastic fashion, spearheading fourth-seeded Western Albemarle’s 5-4 upset of top-seeded Albemarle Monday night. Cowen had eight saves and helped coordinate a game-sealing defensive stand on a man-up opportunity for the Patriots.
“I just relaxed and stayed calm,” Cowen said. “I just let it go when they scored and stayed calm. (Albemarle has) so much movement, it’s impossible to stop. It’s tough to stick with them so I think we did good.”
The Warriors’ Holland Corbett scored the go-ahead goal with just over five minutes to play and Western managed to hold on from there. The penalty kill and then a speedy groundball, escape and clear by Nic Drapanas down the sideline sealed it, setting off a wild celebration by the Warriors.
Corbett’s game-winner was his second goal of the game, with the first coming in the early stages of the game on a poorly executed clear and turnover by the Patriots near their own goal. Burks Summers scored twice as well for Western and Amos Atwell rounded out the scoring for the Warriors. Drew Abernathy dished out a pair of assists.
Drapanas led the Warriors in ground balls with five on the night including the critical one at the finish.
Western has had a roller coaster season in Whitten’s first year at the helm, and the win over the Patriots was a huge momentum boost for a roster packed with underclassmen.
“I just said to the guys down here that at a point in time, you’ve got to learn that sticking to a process is going to allow you to get to an end,” Whitten said. “We hit the shots that we needed to, we made great defensive stands and the guys put forth a great effort and it was awesome.”
The win vaults the Warriors into the West Central Division championship against Monticello and gives them a berth in the section playoffs.
Albemarle struggled to create good scoring chances all night, settling for a slew of shots from the outside that didn’t allow the Patriots to take advantage of a 36-30 advantage on ground balls.
Albemarle has been in a bit of a funk of late, and couldn’t shake out of it against the Warriors.
“Not for days,” said Albemarle coach Greg Crow. “We practiced kind of hard on Saturday, but what are you going to do? The bottom line is that the top four in our district is good, you can’t have a bad day in our district.”
