WAHS reaches final

On an unusually cold mid-May night, Western Albemarle used two sizzling-hot performances to open each half to defeat Loudon County 21-8 in the Region II semifinals Monday night.
Early on it looked as if the Raiders would be no match for the Warriors as Western bolted out to a quick 4-0 lead in the opening five minutes of the match.
“The girls really came prepared for this game,” said Western coach Nancy Haws. “They really wanted to take this win. For us, if you lose this game, you’re out for the whole season. They wanted to extend their season…It was their heart and hustle that did it.”
The Raiders, however, were able to score three consecutive goals to tighten the game and eventually tied the score at six apiece with just under a minute to go in the first half.
“We just got off the bus [and] weren’t really excited,” said Loudon coach Courtney Wilhelm. “We tried to throw some new plays in over the weekend and not being comfortable at running those in games before, it looked like we were cold. A couple goals went by and we got settled in and played our game. It’s just tough coming in and not really knowing some of the plays that we were trying to work on.”
The Warriors then put a dent in the Raiders’ morale as they scored a goal with 42.9 seconds left in the first half to break the tie the Raiders had just worked to achieve.
“They saw us as a threat and they put out our fire,” Wilhelm said. “We knew this was a very strong team coming in.”
From that moment on, Western took complete control of the game, scoring eight straight goals to regain momentum. In all, eight different Warriors scored and six different players assisted goals. Senior Warrior Bridgette Lynn topped all scorers with six goals followed closely by sophomore Ellen Shaffrey with five.
Despite a stellar offensive showing, it was Lynn’s defense on Loudon senior Brooke Hewartson, who managed one goal, which Haws praised most highly.
“We had [Lynn] faceguard [Hewartson] on their team who was unanimously voted [to be on the District 1] team and she shut her out today,” Haws said. “As much as we’re very appreciative of what Bridgette did on the attack end, we’ve come to rely on that as well, but defensively, she shut their number 1 player out. We feel like that’s more valuable to us than anything else.”
The entire Warrior defense played well, holding the Raiders to two second half goals, which helped them take control of the second half.
“There was an intensity to get the ground balls and the fifty-fifties,” Haws said. “I think there were a lot more interceptions for us and there was just that hustle.”
Haws also noted that senior goalie Caitlin Boles had improved the most of any player on the team this season.
The Warriors’ improvement on face-offs in the second half also helped them wear down Loudon.
“Faceoff is definitely one of the things we’ve been working on and figuring out body positions and it’s one of those skills that are really hard to reproduce in your own practice,” Haws said. “So we’ve really tried to use the first half to make those adjustments and to talk to the girls about body position and to fix the mistakes they were making and I think that’s really helped us a lot. When you try to do that in practice, you just don’t have that same intensity. But here in a game when they can feel and have the results of their mistakes right in front of them, they were able to make those adjustments.”
Once the Warriors won more face-offs, they were relentless in their advances toward the goal, something Haws attributed to improved conditioning.
“Obviously, goals are momentum killers for the other team, but also, we kept pushing it and I really feel like a lot of that is because the girls know they physically can,” Haws said.
Despite the loss, Wilhelm was happy with her team’s achievements and improvement over last season, noting that the Raiders finished second in the Dulles District after finishing seventh last season.
“I’m very proud of the girls and how hard they’ve worked all season,” Wilhelm said. “This is the first time this school has made it this far in girls’ lacrosse.”
The Raiders were runner-up in their district to Broad Run High School, which just happens to be the team that Western will face in the region finals Wednesday at a to be determined time and place, though the game will be held at a Dulles District host site. Despite being miles apart, the Warriors have become very familiar with Broad Run, facing them in the region finals each of the last two seasons and at the beginning of this season.
“We beat them in overtime the first game of the season and we have been in the last two years’ [region finals],” Haws said. “We won it last year in 2008 and they won it in 2007. So this is our third time facing them in the region finals. It’s a good rivalry though. I’m very good friends with [coach Jen Melhuish]. We respect each other tremendously. It’s one of those games where we both hope we bring our best games.”