Collin Moore and Will Thomas are good friends, so Moore knew when Thomas wasn’t totally locked in early in the season how frustrating that could be for Thomas.
Which is what made those two friends connecting on a tremendous goal to put Western up by three in the Region 3A West quarterfinals en route to a 4-0 victory over Christiansburg, the Warriors’ seventh-straight win.
“(Thomas) was struggling at the beginning of the year and I felt for him but I’m glad he’s finishing now, he’s finishing at the most important part of the season,” Moore said.
That third goal was a backbreaker for the Blue Devils that came early in the second half and snuffed out any hope of a Christiansburg rally from a 2-0 deficit at halftime.
“Everything is connecting when we need it to,” Moore said. “I saw (Aidan Sinclair) try to play it forward and I was trying to overlap him. (Sinclair) ended up hitting that center back and he had an unsure first touch so I just kept my run and ended up taking it from him. Then I found Will in the middle because he yelled for it from the top of the PK spot.”
Thomas pointed to the fact that his struggles were really centered around just not finishing in the regular season — with one of the squad’s highest assist totals, the Sewanne-bound Thomas was clearly involved heavily in the offense. But he had just two regular season goals and he’s scored four so far for Western in a red-hot postseason campaign.
“It’s a relief,” Thomas said. “The whole regular season I wasn’t getting the goals, but it wasn’t that I wasn’t playing well. I was still connecting and being a part of almost every goal scored. Coming out in the postseason is really big, helps the confidence.”
Thomas also had the Warriors’ game-winner early on in the contest, with Aidan Sinclair notching the Warriors’ other two goals.
Western managed to control possession for long stretches with help from players like Daniel Forsman in the midfield. The Warriors in particular did a solid job of creating changes, finding aggressive paths to goal where they attacked the Christiansburg defense. Sinclair was a big part of that as he took advantage of a short rest early on to bring fresh legs to solo run with under 19 minutes to play that capped the Warriors scoring. Sinclair wove his way at top speed through the Christiansburg defense and buried the ball easily.
“We kind of expect that from him at this point, we know he’s going to at least do that once or twice a game and have a shot on goal like that,” Moore said. “We love it and we expect it.”
On the back end, Western limited the Blue Devils to a handful of chances and when Christiansburg did a good look, like they did with just a few seconds left in the first half, Jonathan Whyte proved up to the task, making a leaping save to his left to snuff out that opportunity.
It also helps that back line when the offense comes out with an aggressive mentality, and Tuesday night they certainly had that.
“Everybody is playing hard and coming out fast which is important for us because that’s when we struggle — when we come out slow,” Moore said. “If we come out fast, every game it seems to connect, we seem to play well.”
The win sets up Western in the Region 3A West semifinals where they’ll face Rockbridge, who beat Brookville 4-0 Tuesday in another quarterfinal Thursday night at Northside High in Roanoke.
