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RC Girls Fall To WA In Soccer Wildcats’ Impressive Season Ends In Regional Quarters
Wrapping up its best season in recent history, the Rockbridge County High School girls soccer team suffered a 12-0 road loss to Western Albemarle in the Region 3C quarterfinals last Wednesday night in Crozet.
In their first year under head coach Danny Wheeler, the eighth-seeded Wildcats bounced back from an 0-4 start by winning five of their next six games and finishing with an overall record of 8-9-0 (6-6-0 in the Valley District). With the win, topseeded Western Albemarle improved to 15-1-1.
Senior goalkeeper Sophia Perlozzo made four saves for the Wildcats while backup goalkeeper Caden Marshall, a freshman who moved up from the junior varsity team, made one save.
Impressed by the Western Albemarle Class 4 state runner- up last year before moving down to Class 3 this year, Wheeler said, “I would be shocked if they were not state champions.” Wheeler noted that the Warriors have a few Division I prospects and have players who are also members of the travel team.
“They have an outstanding program and are a disciplined team,” added Wheeler. “Their defense is solid, outside and in the middle. Their shifts and transitions are precise, and the team speed is respectable.”
Looking back at the season, Wheeler was proud of what his team accomplished after going 5-11-0 last year. “No one expected us to qualify for regional competition,” he said.
Perlozzo, RC’s goalkeeper since her freshman year, finished with more than 300 saves, making her 300th save in a 1-0 upset win at home over Valley District power Spotswood on May 3.
When this year’s seniors were freshmen, the Wildcats went 1-9-0, losing by the mercy rule almost every game in a season that was delayed and condensed due to COVID-19.
This season was the Wildcats’ best season in six years. In 2018, the Wildcats went 9-7-4 under head coach Ray Ellington, losing to Western Albemarle 8-0 in the Region 3C quarterfinals. Western would go on to win the state title that year.
The Wildcats will miss their four seniors: Perlozzo, defender Nellie Orrison, forward Sophie Vaught and forward/ midfielder Faith Walker.
Praising the seniors, Wheeler “We are extremely appreciative of their contributions, their athletic ability, their soccer IQ and talent, as well as what they leave behind, legacy-wise. They were very attuned to passing that on to the juniors and sophomores, and those juniors and sophomores will rise, and they have accepted.”
This year’s team had four alldistrict selections, all underclassmen. Junior midfielder/ forward Madelyn Jones and freshman forward/midfielder Lucy Boller-Pinkham were named to the all-district first team last week, while junior defender Madeline Swisher and junior midfielder Lydia Kendall were selected to the all-district second team.
The Wildcats handed out team awards this week, and Jones was named their player of the year. Boller-Pinkham was selected as the team’s offensive player of the year, while Perlozzo was named the Wildcats’ defensive player of the year.
Wheeler, joined by assistant coaches Carrie Dietz, Jeffrey Tomlin and Kevin Kendall, said the Wildcats plan to keep working hard to improve in the offseason. “We’ll focus on agility and speed,” said Wheeler. “We have some promising talent coming up from [junior varsity]. You always have those individuals who have had the opportunity to see what we’ve accomplished.
“We have a lot of potential and a lot of talent moving forward,” added Wheeler. In addition to agility and speed, Wheeler said the Wildcats will focus on “quality of passes and touches and strengthening our triangles, but we have a great core defensive group coming up and some established leadership, as well as core attack and midfield.”
