The explanation might have been tougher to take than the call.
In a physical, hardfought contest on a sweltering Tuesday night, Western Albemarle’s boys soccer team was tagged with a penalty with 2:04 to play in the second overtime inside the box. Broad Run’s Kevin Reitzel buried the ensuing penalty shot and the Spartans hung on for a 2-1 victory.
“It was the kind of game that you felt like was destined for PKs,” said Western coach Paul Rittenhouse. “That’s a tough one to swallow.”
The lead referee made the call on a pull down as Western Albemarle junior Aidan Barkley battled a Broad Run offensive player along the goaline extended. Barkley smartly attempted to shield the ball and force a goal kick, but the ball never trickled out of bounds. Both players went to the ground as the ball’s roll slowed and the official blew the whistle for the foul, not the obstruction that was the prevailing interpretation after the call and would’ve led to an indirect kick for Broad Run.
The penalty kick cut short a game that appeared headed for a shootout after a scoreless second half and opening overtime. All the game’s scoring happened in the closing three minutes of the first half, with Reitzel broke through with a flick for Broad Run with just over two minutes to play off a Tom Foster header. Western answered with 18 seconds left before the break when electric forward Richard Beckett-Ansa raced out to a run and slotted the ball for the equalizer.
From there, both sides dug in for a war of a second half marked by physical, combative play throughout.
“I was really proud of our kids not to get caught up in the emotion of the game with the crowd, the environment and that it’s lose and you’re done,” said Broad Run coach Jonathan Hicks, who added that Western was the best squad the Spartans had faced all year. “You can’t take anything away from Western Albemarle, they could’ve won just as easily as we did.”
Western suffered through a series of close calls throughout the match, avoiding two Broad Run regulation goals when a Spartan wing sent one ball high on a wideopen breakaway and again when Western keeper Kai Shin overplayed a ball toward the sideline and was left scrambling back toward the box as Broad Run blasted the ball toward the goal. Noah Oakland saved the ball that was rolling along the goaline and it ricocheted off another play and went out of boundes.
But the Warriors’ own close calls were more painful. Three shots off the crossbar in the opening minutes of the game, and another crossbar with six minutes left in regulation left the Warriors with a set of missed opportunities. Patrick Wayand and Beckett-Ansa set that final crossbar up perfectly with a pair of deft touches on the wing.
“In some aspects we did it so quickly that it took us out of our gameplan because we were able to do it so quickly,” Rittenhouse said. “When they adjusted, they adjusted well and we kept doing that.”
Broad Run, the defending Region II champions, went 14-1-1 but couldn’t win the Dulles District, falling behind 15-1 Park View.
