It was a brutal finish for Western Albemarle’s boys soccer team.
“You go up 2-1 and you’re man up,” said Western coach Milo Oakland. “As a team you’ve got to learn from a situation like this.”
With 9:24 left, Albemarle’s Daniel Starr on a Franco Duran Reyes assist found the back of the net for Albemarle to equalize and after the Patriots withstood overtime, they had salvaged a 2-2 tie from a game that appeared headed for a Western Albemarle road win in the driving rain.
The Patriots played a man down after a red card and rallied with just 10 on the field, helping reverse course from a frustrating second half where two Western Albemarle goals erased a 1-0 Albemarle advantage at the break.
“Western is really good, Milo is a really good coach,” said Albemarle coach Scott Jackson. “They’re always organized and they scored two good goals, but we seemed to pick it up when we were down a man.”
Western scored those two solid goals with Ryan Ingram striking with 31:21 to play to equalize and Albemarle’s red card came shortly thereafter. Western took advantage and struck just six minutes later on a Jed Strickland header with 25:11 left in the game and appeared set to pull away with the win. Albemarle woke up though and started to take the attack to the Warriors despite being down a man.
The red card seemed to galvanize the Patriots who’d been struggling despite Starr’s first goal off a Michael Vaughn assist that gave them the lead at halftime.
“They seemed to be more motivated when it was 10 kids, we were a little lethargic with 11,” Jackson said. “I don’t know if it fired them up or what.”
That infusion of energy changed the scope of the game and opened the door for the late tie for Albemarle.
“It’s not uncommon to see a team go down a man and then really step up their game,” Oakland said. “This is two games in a row where they’ve outworked us.”
The tie came just five days after Albemarle beat the Warriors 3-1, so it was certainly a better result for Western, but they were quite close to coming up with what would’ve been a huge victory for a squad that lost 10 starters from last year’s state title team.
“This is a situation they’ve never been in before,” Oakland said. “So what we talked about was that is our one mistake, that’s our one gimme and next time we’re going to learn from that.”
Thomas Leckrone had five saves in net for the Patriots.
