Covenant’s starting defenders and goalie Austin Hall celebrated several second half goals by the top-seeded Eagles’ offense with a quick, but well-thought out dance routine like they have during much of the season in games that have gotten out of hand. They were eventually reprimanded by one of the game’s referees, but who could blame the Eagles’ back line for a little good-natured, creative celebration?
They were efficiently dominating No. 8 seed Hampton Roads Academy to the tune of a 20-0 blowout in the VISAA Division II quarterfinals.
“We had a good bounce back today from the loss to VES (In the VIC final) and I think we’re really coming together as a unit,” said senior defender Bobby Findley. “It’s a good time to do that.”
The Eagles handled HRA much better than they did Virginia Episcopal a week ago, in part because the Navigators tried to push the tempo while VES attempted to slow things down. Despite a shorter bench, Covenant seems to handle teams that want to take the pace up quite well, in part because they have an explosive offense and a lot of speed on the backline.
“We’re really well conditioned,” Findley said. “And we don’t have (a lot) of subs, but they’re good.”
That potent offense produced nicely against Hampton Roads, with Drew Gaffney leading the way as usual with five goals and two assists. Three other Eagles – Jay Gaffney, Michael Colberg and sophomore attackman Savraj Moore – notched hat tricks. Austin Llera finished with five ground balls to lead the Eagles in that category.
Hall needed just three saves in the cage to preserve the shutout as HRA struggled to clear the ball and the Covenant offense milked the clock for long stretches.
Posting a shutout of that magnitude to advance to the state semifinals sets a strong tone for the state’s defending champions, and they’ll now face No. 4 seeded Christchurch in the semifinals Friday at the University of Richmond’s Robbins Stadium.
