By Jimmy LaRoue / Scrimmage Play.com contributor
Milo Oakland had a lot of time to think about what he would say to his Western Albemarle field hockey team following its Group 4A state semifinal game in Virginia Beach against James Monroe.
Under the best of circumstances, Oakland said that even if Western had played its best, it was still looking at giving up four to five goals.
But it had already given up four in the first 29 minutes, and despite a brief respite in the waning seconds of the first half from Valerie Hajek, the Yellow Jackets continued the onslaught with four more in an 8-1 win over the Warriors Friday at the National Training Center.
James Monroe (22-0) will face defending state champions Tabb (19-1), 5-0 winners over Great Bridge, in today’s Group 4A final as Western (18-5) concludes its best season since 2011, when it last reached the semifinals.
It’s also progress from last season, in which the Warriors were eliminated by Charlottesville in the Conference 23 semifinals.
“We set the goals for our season and we hit them,” Oakland said. “The goal was to go to states, and I think it was very realistic, and so it hurts when you get here and then you actually have to finally experience the end of your season.
“But if you think about it, there’s only going to be one team that’s happy at the end of the season, and so to make it to the second-to-last day, it’s amazing. It makes us one of the top four teams in (Group 4A) and I couldn’t be prouder.”
The Yellow Jackets, Oakland said, were much improved from their 1-0 win over the Warriors to start the season and displayed passing dexterity and speed on the fast turf.
James Monroe got four goals from Ashley Kim, a pair from Morgan Rigual and a one-goal, three-assist performance from Lizzie Hamlett. The Yellow Jackets held a 34-4 total shot advantage, a 16-1 advantage in shots on cage and a 20-1 advantage in corners over Western, that one coming with just 2:46 left in the game.
“We are proud that we stuck together as a team even though that kinda sucked that we lost by a lot,” said Western senior Eliza Brodie. “But I think we are friends above all, and we have other things going on in our life, and as Madison (Masloff) pointed out, it would have all ended (Saturday) anyway.”
Though Western was first to penetrate into the JM circle, the Yellow Jackets kept a steady stream of pressure on the Warriors goal until Rigual broke through with an assist from Lizzie Hamlett with 19:05 left in the first half.
JM kept up the pressure and scored again at the 7:25 mark on the first of Kim’s four goals, with another Lizzie Hamlett assist. Kim’s shot took a deflection and went over the head of Western goalie Genevieve Repich.
Less than two minutes later, Lizzie Hamlett scored one for herself, getting an assist from sister Rebecca Hamlett. The two goals in rapid-succession forced Oakland to call a timeout.
The Yellow Jackets extended their lead to 4-0 with 51 seconds remaining in the half on Kim’s second, but Hajek replied 23 seconds later.
“We were thinking if we could get one more goal, it would be a two-goal game, but they’re a really good team and they brought it,” Brodie said.
Hajek’s goal briefly gave Western hope to get back into the game, but Kim scored two more to open the second half scoring, Rigual scored her second and for good measure, Rebecca Hamlett scored with 11 seconds left in the game.
“Don’t get me wrong, I think if we had executed a little better – we were looking to spread the ball wider, and we had things we were trying to do – and if we had done them, we would have had far more opportunities, and there’s certainly things we could have done to score more goals,” Oakland said. “But in terms of stopping theirs … even if we had played a flawless game, I still think we were going to give up four or five goals.”
Oakland said James Monroe had a decisive advantage with a roster filled with club players.
“They seemed very comfortable out there, they knew what they were doing, and they were able to execute passes in a very clean and fun way to watch,” Oakland said. “They were the better team today. They were just better.”
