Albemarle rolls to Commonwealth final

Albemarle’s boys lacrosse team continued to dominate its competition in the Commonwealth District on Wednesday. This time, the Patriots defeated visiting Colonial Forge 11-5 in the semifinals of the district tournament.
After dropping two of its final three regular season games, Albemarle wanted to jump out early, and junior attackman Bernie Mowbray got things started, scoring two of his three goals in the opening seven minutes. Midfielder Dalton Stokes also scored two of his three goals in the first quarter to help the Patriots jump out to a 4-0 lead.
“I think Dalton shot the ball very well, we also did a good job of seeing the ball in the box a number of times,” said AHS coach Pat McAdams. “The attack, I thought were more consistent than we had been the last time Colonial Forge was here, being active off the ball and being very patient.”
McAdams praised midfielder Ari Elgort’s effort Wednesday, as the junior won 65 percent of his faceoffs to establish the momentum on the side of the Patriots. Albemarle maintained possession for the majority of the quarter to set the tone for the game. Colonial Forge’s Scott Siegner had given the Patriots difficulty in the faceoff battle in the teams’ regular-season meetings.
“We were active enough early on off the ball to get some of those inside looks and finish right on top of the goal,” said McAdams.
The Patriots outshot the Eagles 40-25 and won the groundball battle 48-36. Sophomore Connor McCullough scored twice and had three assists, and fellow attacker Billy Crist had a hat trick and dished out two assists of his own. Goalkeeper Gus Cramer was also solid, coming up with nine saves.
Colonial Forge made things interesting late in the fourth quarter after trailing by as many as eight, when Josh Garrison and Dennis Poillon scored two goals in 23 seconds to cut the lead to six with 5:35 to play.
“As the game wore on, and I think we felt like we had it more in hand, we did tend to get a little bit lazy, and that resulted in giving up some goals,” said McAdams.
Albemarle (13-2) will host the district final on Friday at 8 p.m. against North Stafford.

(12-4). The Patriots won the two previous meetings between the schools.