Albemarle punches ticket

Despite falling short in the Northwest Region semifinals last Friday at Loudoun Valley, Albemarle still had a chance to make a return trip to the Group AAA tournament with a win in the region’s third-place game against Forest Park on Wednesday. The Patriots more than made up for last week’s loss with an impressive 20-1 drubbing of the Bruins.

Forest Park (10-2) was coming off of its first loss of the season, having dropped an 18-8 contest to Battlefield on Friday. That loss also marked the first game in which the Bruins gave up double-digit goals.

“I’m really proud of this group, it’s a fantastic group to work with, and they really work as a team, and I think we saw that tonight,” said first-year coach Laurie Pratt, who admitted that she was pleasantly surprised of her team’s convincing win. “This was a nice bounce-back.”

Albemarle (11-5) made it look rather easy on its home field, taking a 13-0 halftime lead on just 23 shots. Twelve Patriots scored and 10 different players had an assist. Senior captain Kathleen Frechette led the way with four goals and three assists, while Katie Williams and Courtney Elliott each contributed hat tricks as well.

“[Kathleen] is such a receptive player,” Pratt said. “She’s always looking out for her teammates and making sure that everybody’s getting a chance, and that she’s making things happen off the ball that are going to give other people an opportunity.”

Frechette had it working early and often, scoring the first three goals of the game in just over five minutes. The midfielder touched on the importance of getting everyone involved, as the Patriots have spread the wealth all season long.

“Out of all my years here, this has definitely been the strongest-scoring attack throughout the whole team,” Frechette said. “All seven of us can score when we need to, and we’ve tried to do that as much as possible.”

Pratt added: “We’ve been lucky enough this year that we’ve got a lot of shooters, and we’ve been able to take advantage of that. Sometimes it’s hard to get players confident and be able to take it to the goal, and we’ve been really working on that for everybody.”

Junior Emily Gelzer had two goals and an assist, while classmate Rachel Hochstetler added a goal and three helpers. Langley Sloan, Abby Hendrix, and several other Patriots played a part in the offensive effort, and senior goalkeeper Alexis Carey had a big day, allowing just one goal out of 13 shots while snagging 10 saves.

Albemarle will play at Robinson in the Group AAA quarterfinals on Saturday evening.