It isn’t often that you hear “sweep the leg,” an homage to the 1984 movie Karate Kid, yelled from the stands after a soccer game in Central Virginia.
But not every game features Western Albemarle senior Tom Rogers wearing a karate-style headband emblazoned with a rising sun.
“We had this adamant fan but an accumulation of trouble at school made the administration say he couldn’t come to any more games but he wanted to wear this on senior night (as a tribute) to him,” Rogers said. “I wore it against William Monroe on senior night and then against Orange we didn’t have a very good game, so I figured it was good luck.”
It proved to be good luck for at least another night, as Western rolled 3-0 to a win over Charlottesville in the Jefferson District semifinals.
“Tom brings a little flair, he brings a little attitude,” said Western coach Paul Rittenhouse. “I think it reminds him what he’s playing for—he’s playing hard and it brings it out of him.”
But it was Western’s strong defensive presence and Alex Nolet’s return, not Rogers’ headband, that had the biggest impact on the Warriors’ success. The unit shutdown Charlottesville’s offense that just days ago had looked terrific against Goochland County in the JD quarterfinals, moving in concert throughout the game.
“When they step forward as a unit like that and just shut it down it makes the game easier for us midfielders and forwards,”
Western Albemarle has been hampered by injuries too, most recently losing Christian Pettygrove to an injury, which makes the defense’s adjustments to playing without him and subsequent shutout against the Black Knights all the more impressive.
“We’ve just been saying ‘please, can we get everybody healthy when we hit postseason,” Rittenhouse said. “Maybe this is the closest we’ll ever get, but it feels like the closest that we have been and I think that allowed our defense to play the way they had maybe midway through the season.”
While Pettygrove was out, the Warriors got potent scoring threat Nolet back from a high ankle sprain. Nolet had a monster return and helped get Western’s offense going, scoring a pair of goals off assists from Lane Gearhart and Rogers.
The lone freshman on the Warriors’ roster, Hayes Fountain, sparked an insurance goal for Western with a perfectly placed through ball to Aaron Myers, who promptly finished off the pass with a goal.
Charlottesville’s offense, on the other hand, couldn’t get on track, a step backwards from last week’s 4-0 win over Goochland where the Black Knights were constantly on the attack and making deep runs into the offensive zone. Western gave the CHS strikers fits all night.
“Some of it is the pressure they put (on you) and another one is that, coming to Western, there’s a little bit of nerves that we need to get over more quickly,” said Charlottesville coach Stephen Cost. “We just seemed a little out of sync.”
