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Western swaps jerseys, rolls past Albemarle

Western Albemarle’s jerseys were non-descript — and a little overused — but the Warriors might want to go with that plan every night after a 10-2 victory over Albemarle.

Because of an email miscommunication, the Warriors, who were set to wear black jerseys opposite Albemarle’s red, had to make an impromptu switch when the Patriots showed up in navy — Albemarle doesn’t own red jerseys.

So Western scrambled and strapped on the junior varsity’s whites that were worn earlier in the evening and promptly rolled to the eight-goal win behind a high-octane offense led by a four-goal effort by Abbott Wallenborn and a hat trick from Owen Wangensteen.

“That guy covering me (mostly Albemarle senior Geoff Quick) was really good and athletic,” Wallenborn said. “But we moved the ball around a lot and got the defense out of position and my shot was working out there.”

Reid White, Turner Whitworth and Christophe Drapanas also got into the mix with a goal each. Whitworth and Drapanas both had goals during the first half when the Warriors built a 5-0 lead by capitalizing on several extra man opportunities before the break.

“We changed a little bit this year so we practice man-up and man-down every day and we do it early in practice before the guys get tired,” said Western coach Brad Haws. “On our man-up sets that makes a big difference.”

The Warriors also got 14 stops out of sophomore goalie Ben Carew, who blanked the Patriots deep into the second half. He also made a critical stop with 5:15 left after Albemarle put a pair of goals together that cut short any hopes of a miracle comeback by the Patriots.

“We got a little slack on defense in the third quarter, and he came up with some big saves that kept the momentum going,” Haws said.

Albemarle struggled to find a rhythm against the Warriors, and seemed to constantly draw penalties in key situations. That opened the door for Western to build a big lead that Albemarle couldn’t ever counterpunch against.

“They got the bounces early on and they took some nice shots,” said Albemarle coach Pat McAdams. “They pressured us pretty well and I don’t think we handled it very well.”

Billy Crist and Hunter McCann scored in the fourth for the Patriots, with Ryan McCollough assisting on Crist’s goal.

Western faces off against Woodberry Forest Tuesday while the Patriots (7-4) hit the road to take on North Stafford.

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