It didn’t take long for Charlottesville’s field hockey team to break through. Ten minutes in fact.
But the floodgates didn’t open after that — instead the Black Knights had to fight and claw to hold on to that 1-0 lead in a narrow win over Western Albemarle.
“I’m excited for the win because every time we win it’s going to boost our confidence and Western is always somebody who’s going to come out on fire — we knew it was going to be a fight,” said Charlottesville coach Lindsay Larson.
Emily Blow notched the game’s lone goal with 20:24 to play in the first half, corraling a long pass before dribbling in and finishing off a rebound. Western Albemarle’s young squad — the Warriors’ roster contains just three seniors — responded well to the early deficit, building confidence as the game wore on.
“We’ve actually had a lot of good measuring stick games–we went to Collegiate and St. Catherine’s who are both fantastic teams and CHS is a fantastic team,” said Western coach Milo Oakland. “I think it’s going to bode well for us as we go through the season–it’s going to be hard for us to be surprised by a team that has amazing skill because we’ve already seen those teams.”
Western sophomore Valerie Hajek in particular made some tremendous runs and really went at the Black Knights’ defensive group. But scoring remained a challenge for the Warriors with Charlottesville’s Kendall Ballard seemingly eating up every errant Western pass or forcing turnovers on a regular basis. It may have been a slow night on the offensive end for the usually prolific senior, but she countered with a tremendous defensive effort.
“She’s incredibly skilled, you have to keep an eye on (Ballard),” Oakland said. “But we did our best to play the game like she’s any other player–we feel like that’s the only way you can approach it.”
Larson pointed out that despite an unbeaten record, Charlottesville still has some work to do.
“Honestly we can learn a lot from this because I think our team is better than what we’re producing right now for sure,” Larson said. “We learn from this because we’re not winning, 6, 7 or 8 nothing, so how we can improve and get better so we’re not having to survive every game and grind it out every game. How can we play our game the whole 60 minutes and stay mentally tough? That’ll help us move forward in the postseason.”
The Black Knights did manage another shut out, as keeper Joanna Kammauff again helped put the clamps on the opposing offense. She’s been scored on just once this season.
Charlottesville will face a strong out-of-district test Thursday when the Black Knights take on St. Anne’s-Belfield while the Warriors take on Powhatan today on the road at 4:30 p.m.
