Warriors fall in quarters

CHANTILLY — From the perspective of an outsider watching Western Albemarle get throttled by Chantilly Friday night, it would appear that Western is simply the lesser team, any day.

The Warriors don’t agree. That made the result all the more disappointing for Western, as the Chargers scored the game’s first nine goals in a 20-5 victory in the Group AA/AAA quarterfinals.

“I think that there’s definitely some confidence with Chantilly up here, but I think they’re going to slowly tap into that,” Western coach Nancy Haws said. “I think it’s just us not being intimidated and coming up here and playing our game.

“We came up here with the intent to win.”

The Chargers scored the game’s first goal 46 seconds into regulation. Western managed to hang in for the next two minutes, though, despite a potential tying goal from junior captain Jordan Haws that sailed high.

“If you look at just the shots in just the first few minutes, we had about an equal number of shots on goal,” Nancy Haws said. “Unfortunately, their goalkeeper saved [our shots], and their shot selection was a little bit better than ours.”

Soon thereafter, though, Chantilly took control. At the 21:41 mark, the Chargers scored their second goal; 15 seconds later, they put in a third. Six minutes into the game, it was 4-0, and less than halfway through the first half, Chantilly had scored its ninth unanswered goal.

The game had been delayed an hour because of rain, and senior captain Effie Nicholaou said a shortened warmup contributed to the slow start.

“We kind of used the first bit [of the game] as a warm-up,” Nicholau said. “They kind of killed us there.”

Brittany Ginel killed Western as the catalyst for Chantilly’s attack. If Western managed to slow down the Chargers before they reached the circle — which it often did not — the ball most often found Ginel’s stick. From the edge of the circle, Ginel either found a cutter streaking in front of goal or found the net herself, scoring three goals and assisting on five others.

“She’s a very unselfish player, which is brilliant on their part,” Nancy Haws said. “She definitely played a great game.”

Western’s best run of the game came in the five minutes after Chantilly’s nine-goal opening run, as the Warriors responded with three goals. Sophomore Stewart Summers put the Warriors on the board off a penalty in the circle, and a minute later sophomore Ellen Shaffrey scored in the same fashion. Sophomore Jeanette Evans then made a run straight into the circle off a Chantilly turnover, and fired a low shot for Western’s third netting with 8:31 in the first.

The six-goal margin, though, was as close as Western would get. Another five-goal run by Chantilly later, and it was 14-3 at halftime. After the first 15 minutes of the first half, the score read 18-4.

What made coach Haws proudest, though, was that Western fought until the final whistle. Senior captain Bridgett Lynn put in the Warriors’ final goal at the six-minute mark before Chantilly finished with two goals in the final 3:10.

“That takes a lot of character when you’re getting beat,” she said.

Chantilly advances to the state semis on Tuesday, where it will meet the Loudoun Valley-W.T. Woodson winner.