Albemarle takes battle of Patriots

At the conclusion of every national anthem at an Albemarle lacrosse game, just after you hear ‘Home of the…’ the players shout ‘Patriots!’ On Friday night, they faced Patrick Henry’s Patriots for the right to play for the Northwest Region title and proved why they roar at opposing teams to let them know whose house it is.

Albemarle (16-2) knocked off Patrick Henry 11-5 and will travel to Forest Park on Tuesday to play for the region championship. Bernie Mowbray led the home attack with four goals, including the game’s final three.

A trio of sophomores — all-Commonwealth District first-team attackman Connor McCollough and midfielders Dalton Stokes and All-District honorable mention selection Billy Crist — had two goals each. Senior second-team all-district middie Zach Pitts also scored twice and dished out an assist to help pace Albemarle.

The home team got off to a sluggish start, yet managed to take a 3-0 lead, extending it to 4-1 by the end of the quarter. Patrick Henry got back into it after back-to-back goals by Drew Anderson and Kyle Smith to trim the advantage to 5-3 with eight minutes left in the half.

McCullough and Pitts scored twice before the break to give Albemarle a 7-3 halftime lead. AHS outscored the opposition 4-1 over the next 20 minutes as PH appeared out of gas.

Albemarle defeated a sizeable Osbourn Park team in the quarterfinals, and Patrick Henry is known for its physicality. The lightning-fast Mowbray and the rest of his teammates used their speed advantage with fast-break opportunities and quick passing.

“We’re definitely a smaller team,” Mowbray said, “and maybe a little bit more speedy, so that definitely helped us. They got out of position a lot more and we got more goals because of that.”

AHS coach Pat McAdams, who was named district coach of the year, knew his troops needed a wake-up call after not jumping out to their usual big early lead.

“It was really up to us to rescue ourselves after we came out a little bit flat,” said McAdams. “It really came down to us being able to get back to basics, to realize that we weren’t being loud enough with the communication on defense, not exploding on offense enough.

“Once we started to kick things in gear, go full speed and start keeping our eyes up, things started to come together for us.”

Senior goalkeeper Gus Cramer proved why they call him ‘The Great Wall” by winning district player of the year honors and coming up big in goal. Cramer gave up four goals — including just one in the last 30-plus minutes he played — to a team that averaged 11.5 coming in and had eight crucial saves.

Cramer gave much-deserved credit to his teammates for his success tonight and the entire season.

“It feels really good to be player of the year,” Cramer said, “but I really owe it all to my five long-pole defenders that have been putting in work all year and making sure that I’m seeing pretty easy shots. They’ve been really solid all year.”

Among the other All-District players who contributed in the win were First-team junior defensemen Julian Kroboth and Jon Pfeifer and senior midfielder Brent Montgomery, who also had a goal. On the second team were long-stick middie Ian Jumper and junior midfielder Ari Elgort. Senior co-captain defender Angus Brooks also made honorable mention.

Albemarle had quite a string of consecutive trips to the state playoffs but hasn’t qualified in a few seasons. Cramer has his sights set on this year’s team having what it takes to begin another streak.

“I think this team has a lot more heart than it’s had in the past,” said Cramer. “I think we’re going to do real well in the state playoff. From the beginning of the season, that’s what we’ve had our eye on, and that’s what we’re still looking for.”