Albemarle’s boys lacrosse got to work quickly Monday night and blew past Potomac, rolling 19-3 in the Class 5, Region D quarterfinals.
Connor Warner poured in five goals and notched an assist to lead the Patriots to a region semifinal berth, just one win away from the state tournament.
“He had a lot of shots — they sat in a zone and so Connor is able to just sit on his left hand and shoot,” said Albemarle coach Dave King.
With Warner rolling and a 14-1 lead over Potomac at the half, Albemarle was able to run out a lot of reserves in the second half, with 11 different Albemarle players scoring at least one goal.
“It’s good to get guys time but we have to play Patrick Henry Thursday, a very good team, the defending state champions, and there were a couple of things we wanted to work on and I don’t know if we got to, but it was good,” King said.
The Patriots got a hat trick from Alec Kelly and two goals each from Zak Atkinson and Cooper Cramer to power the offensive explosion. Tim Lindenbaum dished out three assists. Albemarle held a huge 45-24 advantage on ground balls.
Matthew Willis made four saves while Ty Fjeseth made one save in the cage.
Facing Patrick Henry will be Albemarle’s second shot at the defending champs. Back in late April, Albemarle fell 13-6 to Patrick Henry with a 10-2 run by Patrick Henry in the second half giving them the win. The game was tied 5-5 with five minutes left in the third quarter.
“They’ve had the better of us the last couple of years, they’ve been good,” King said. “We’ll find out.”
