West Springfield Rolls to an 8-0 Triumph

Julia Stejskal barely had enough time to get into position before she gave West Springfield a 1-0 lead in its 8-0 domination at South County last night.

Just 25 seconds into the game, Stejskal, a junior midfielder, turned from a defensive stance and into a perfect scoring position and blasted a 25-yard shot to the front right corner of the goal to spark a rout during which four Spartans scored.

"I think the score says it all," said Stejskal, who scored again six minutes later on a long, low-rolling shot. "We work really hard in practice and in games and tonight it shows."

The victory was the seventh straight for No. 6 West Springfield (7-1-1, 5-0 Virginia AAA Patriot District), which has outscored its challengers 29-0 since it fell, 1-0, to eighth-ranked Centreville (3-2-1) on March 16.

South County, which was without injured starting senior goalkeeper Christina Cooper, fell to 3-2-2 and 1-2-1 in the Patriot District.

A rematch of last year's district championship game, a 2-1 quadruple-overtime victory for West Springfield, last night's effort was a dominant one for West Springfield, which outshot the Stallions 15-5.

"I had this game circled on my calendar," said senior goalkeeper Beth Anne Nowak, who had five saves last night.

"I gave up one of the worst goals of my life against Centreville and not one of my teammates said a word about it to me and that just says everything about this team,"

Behind senior speedster Amalya Clayton (nine goals), the Spartans are averaging 3.4 goals per game while Nowak anchors a defense that earned its seventh straight shutout last night.

Clayton, senior midfielder Jessie Gonzalez and junior midfielder Rachel Mares each scored a pair of goals in the second half.

The Spartans' defense smothered South County's attack, allowing little room for Stallions junior Alex Reed (five goals) and junior midfielder Morgan Duffy (three goals) to work.

Lake Braddock Is Back

Area power Lake Braddock is still in contention for a top seed and home game in the Virginia AAA Patriot District tournament despite putting itself in an early-season hole.

The Bruins went 0-4 and were outscored 17-0 while 16 of their 22 varsity players served suspensions for their involvement in an off-field incident. After the 16 players returned last week, Lake Braddock (3-4, 2-1) headed into last night's meeting with T.C. Williams looking for its third straight district victory after beating Annandale and Hayfield to climb into third place.

"Initially, it was a struggle because there were a lot of emotions to overcome and there was a lot of adversity swirling over us," Bruins Coach Adam Soos said. "Over time, it healed up a little bit. We tried to stay concentrated on the goals we set for ourselves early in the season."

In an 3-1 victory over Hayfield on April 13, senior Christine Tuebner scored a goal while Sharon Wojcik added two goals, one on a header off a cross by Rachel Nichols. In last week's 4-2 victory over Annandale, sophomore Brittany Hopkins had two goals. Lake Braddock has games against West Potomac today and Lee on Friday before meeting South County on Tuesday in a battle for second place in the district.

"One of the disadvantages is that, usually by this point in the year, I would have been able to look at combinations and moving players and seeing what works and we're just starting to be able to do that now," Soos said.