Two teams that appeared on a collision course from essentially day one this season finally met Friday night when Western and Blacksburg boys soccer locked up in the Region 3A West final.
It appeared to live up to everyone’s expectations as the Warriors and Bruins battled from the opening whistle to the closing seconds in a 1-0 victory for Western that gave the Warriors a region title for the first time in nearly a generation.
“We’ve been here before and that PK or whatever hasn’t gone our way and it’s really nice to have it go our way,” said Western’s Michael Nafziger. “Now I’m not saying it’s luck — because I think we have something special going on here.”
Western’s Forrest White scored the game’s lone goal early in the proceedings after Western drew a penalty kick and the senior buried it to stake the Warriors to a 1-0 lead. From there things simply got increasingly intense. It was the most physical match Western endured all year and included numerous hard fouls, a few yellow cards and aggressive play on nearly every touch.
“It was a hard fought game — the hardest fought all season,” said Western coach Paul Rittenhouse. “They came in with a good plan. We’ve seen them play and that was as good as we’ve seen them play and I don’t think that’s an anomaly. They’re a great team.”
Western was inches away from doubling its lead on two particular attacks during the first part of the second half, but Gage Carroll stood tall in the cage for the Bruins, making two spectacular sliding stops to prevent a second Western goal.
Western goalie Al Luna and the rest of the Warriors’ defense withstood a number of great chances for the Bruins too. Western was steady defensively even when Michael Nafziger had to move to center back out of the midfield because of a card against the Warriors, not losing a step despite the lineup shuffle.
Blacksburg is probably the state’s premier 3A program with five state champions in the last 20 years and the reigning Group AA champions under the previous alignment. The Bruins never let up, putting together a couple of potential chances in the closing minute and a half, but the Warriors refused to relent and secured the region title, and, theoretically a slightly easier opponent in the state semifinals. At this point, however, every opponent is tough.
The victory meant a great deal to Western though, a team that’s come up short of a region title since 1996 and because some of the school’s various other programs have run into a similar particular stumbling block this spring.
“Maybe it wasn’t smart but we were talking about them before even region started,” Nafziger said. “They knocked us out in tennis, they knocked us out in baseball … we’ve just got some beef with Blacksburg so we had a target on them.”
Western will play Culpeper County in the Group 3A state semifinals at 2 p.m. Friday at Amherst High School.
