By Logan Riddick / Scrimmageplaycva.com contributor
After a 5-0 start to the 2014 season, the Fluvanna County boys’ lacrosse team finally hit a speed bump: perennial Central Virginia public school power Western Albemarle.
“We needed to execute better on the offensive end than we had in our first three games — particularly, we needed to shoot better, and we shot really well right from the beginning of this game,” said Western coach Alex Whitten.
The Warriors scored the game’s first nine goals over 12 minutes and 21 seconds, cruising to a 20-2 win Friday night in Crozet.
“We got beat in every aspect of the game,” said Fluvanna coach Norman Gee. “We’ll go back to work. My hat’s off to Western; they’re a great program and that’s where we want to get.”
Following a whistle for a loose-ball push by the Flucos a minute into play, Western senior Justin Haws connected on a short-range strike with an assist from Sumner Corbett. Sophomore Oliver Herndon scored unassisted off a loose ball 16 seconds later. Midway through the first, with Fluvanna playing down a man, Haws and Corbett teamed up again to spark a three-goal flurry over a minute and twelve seconds (Taylor Godine unassisted, Carter Elliott unassisted). Later, Clark Sipe found the net with a left-handed shot before Haws completed his first quarter hat trick with an unassisted score eighteen seconds later. Corbett also scored on his own in the last minute to put the Warriors up 8-0.
“We were trying to work the ball around, get it everybody so we could get good looks, and we were just finding the cage,” said Haws.
Junior Josh Satterly put Fluvanna on the board with an unassisted goal at the 7:51 mark of the second quarter. However, there would be no sustained rally to stem Western’s onslaught. The Flucos tallied just four shots during the entire first half, while Western took 28. The Warriors added five more goals in the second quarter from five different players (Christian Cullinan from Haws; Burks Summers from Nicholas Crissey; Corbett from Carter Elliott; Luke Reilly unassisted; and Amos Atwell from Corbett).
“Our strength really is our defense,” Whitten said. “We have three senior goalies, and we’ve got athletes in the midfield. We just pressure out and take away their man’s hands and force turnovers. We’ve asked our guys to shoot a lot and play up tempo, and that’s important for us to continue to do.”
Cullinan added two third quarter goals around a second from Reilly as Western opened a 16-1 lead with a running game clock. Austin Early netted Fluvanna’s second goal of the game late in the period. In the fourth, Elliott tallied two goals while Holland Corbett scored one and assisted on two others, including Haws’ fourth.
“As much as it’s a tough pill to swallow, maybe our team needed it,” said Gee. “We’d gotten on a little bit of a high, and I think we needed to be brought down in check so we can focus on taking our other district games.”
Fluvanna (5-1, 0-1) next plays at Charlottesville on Tuesday night. Western (3-1, 1-0) travels to Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax on Saturday to face Winston Churchill before welcoming Albemarle for a District showdown also on Tuesday.
