With a defense that is as good as it gets, the Western Albemarle field hockey team has been spending its fair share of time in practice working on trying to capitalize on their scoring opportunities, especially on short corners. Facing Charlottesville in the Jefferson District semifinals, the Warriors took advantage of the chances they were given, scoring twice on short corners in the first half to advance to the championship game after their 2-0 victory.
“Last game against Charlottesville we had nine short corners didn’t score on any of them,” said Western coach Mia Fields. “It’s nice to execute on corners, it’s a real bonus. You work so hard to get them so you really want to score when you do get them.”
Making the most of the traffic in front of the cage, Madeline DuCharme put the Warriors on the board halfway through the first half when she tipped in a pass from Jordan Haws. With just under 10 minutes to play before the break, Western struck again, this time on a crisp short corner where Olivia Hajek found L.P. Desch who rifled a shot into the back of the goal.
“Executing on corners was a goal of ours,” Desch said. “I thought we did a good job of getting our shots off.”
Save for two fast breaks, the Warriors held the Black Knights in their own end for almost the entire first half. However, Charlottesville was able to put together more scoring opportunities in the second half, only to have Western goalie Lindsey Gibson come up with the saves she needed to preserve her third consecutive shutout against a JD opponent.
“I thought we were a different team in the second half,” said Charlottesville coach Jennifer Santoski. “We were just moving the ball better and communicating. That was the big thing — just talking with each other out there.”
Sam Miller put forth an outstanding performance in goal for the Knights. The senior goalkeeper stymied the Warriors on a pair of what looked like sure goals in the second half and finished the game with 11 saves.
For the second straight season, Western will face Orange County in the JD championship on Thursday at 6 p.m. at Monticello.
Charlottesville still advances to the Region II tournament where they await their opponent, which will be partially decided by the winner of the Jefferson consolation game against Monticello Thursday.
