After he scored his third-straight goal in a 5-0 victory over Western Albemarle, Joe von Storch jogged back across midfield and said to the Charlottesville bench “It’s Blow season.”
He was referencing past Charlottesville great and current Randolph College sophomore Evan Blow, who caught fire in the last month of the Black Knights’ 2017 season and helped Charlottesville make a run to the state title game when von Storch was a sophomore.
“He wasn’t struggling as much as I was in the regular season but he just completely turned it on at the end of the regular season and into the playoffs,” von Storch said.
Von Storch’s own breakthrough came on an overtime game-winner earlier this week against Albemarle and he made it a full-on tear with a first half hat trick against the Warriors. The senior who’s bound for UVa next year as an invited walk-on with the football program pointed to his teammates as a big reason for the sudden surge.
“I just have a whole lot of confidence right now and my teammates have a whole lot of confidence in me and it makes job really easy,” von Storch said. “Especially with Ayat (Mohamed) attracting all that attention up top. That just makes my job so much easy.”
Von Storch’s three first half goals ut the Warriors in a deep hole and Kyle Lehnert and Ethan Hatcher tacked on two more in the second half. Lehnert also had a pair of assists on the night while Hatcher was a case of a defender getting a chance to put one in the back of the net.
“I’m friends with the guy who had been marking me on all of the corners and on the first one I said I’m getting one on you,” Hatcher said. “But I just ran in and it came right on my foot and I just laid it right in with the outside.”
Hatcher and the Black Knights’ defense kept a clean sheet and tightened things up after giving up a couple of potential chances in the first half. As Hatcher pointed out, it helped that the offense was doing a pretty incredible job of possessing and attacking.
“Our defensive line is definitely clicking a lot more than it has been but it also starts with the offense not letting the ball get back to us, especially our midfield,” Hatcher said. “Our midfield really wanted the ball which in turn led to us not having to do as much, I was just standing at half field most of the game.”
The Black Knights, who are now in the Region 4D driver’s seat with a seeding edge of defending state champ Blacksburg, have started finding another gear of late with von Storch’s emergence. That starts with Mohamed who is already an electric threat up top — he notched an assist against the Warriors — and it continues with West Virginia-bound Lehnert proving to be a versatile impact player in the attacking half beyond his stalwart defensive play that has anchored CHS since he entered the lineup.
With Von Storch heating up and Malcolm Brickhouse controlling the midfield, the Black Knights are building into something special as they try to complete an unbeaten run through the Jefferson District slate with Louisa County and Monticello left on the regular season slate.
That’s why the parallel of Blow is becoming a little more important for von Storch.
“I remember two years ago, him carrying us to a state final berth,” von Storch said. ““I just hope I can help our team do that and I really want to win that ring this year.”
If he keeps putting together his own version of Blow season, that’s certainly becoming a possibility.
