Stein Powers Rams Back to Concorde District Finals

Robinson scored 10 unanswered goals in the first half to turn what had the makings of a tightly contested rematch with Oakton into a 14-6 rout, earning the Rams a berth in the Concorde District championship game. Jason Stein led the onslaught with four goals and an assist, and Clarke Pietruszka and Sean McShea added three goals each.

Oakton’s Bradley Mason opened the scoring on a feed from Sean Miller, but it was all Robinson from that point on. McShea and Stein scored 10 seconds apart to give the Rams the lead, and the Cougars never recovered. Evan Lalande finally stopped the bleeding with 1:21 remaining in the first half, but at 10-2, the game was essentially out of hand.

“I certainly didn’t expect it to be 10-2 at halftime,” Robinson head coach Matt Curran said. “We had a great week of practice, so I knew we were prepared and I knew we had the intensity. I could just tell, looking at the team, but I didn’t expect that [wide of a margin of victory].”

Robinson’s offense was run to near perfection, as the Rams used a dominating advantage on faceoffs to create fast break chances that seemed to leave the Cougars stunned. The Rams were credited with assists on eight of their 14 goals, although Robinson’s scorekeeper had a liberal definition of what qualified as an assist. Nonetheless, Curran admitted that most of his hard work was over when the first whistle blew.

“A lot of it comes down to execution,” he said. “Most of the coaching that we do is in practice preparing them for the game. We make some adjustments and come up with a game plan, but it comes down to just getting it done on the field and that’s what the guys did tonight.”

Oakton, meanwhile, struggled to maintain possession of the ball long enough to create quality scoring opportunities, settling for more and more long range shots as the game progressed. When asked after the game what his team needed to do differently, head coach Grif Barhight struggled to pinpoint anything specific, instead shifting his focus to the start of the Northern Region tournament next Tueday, when the Cougars will play the National District runner-up.

“I’m excited that we have a special group, and I look forward to regional playoffs,” Barhight said. “We’re not dead today, this is not the end. We have nights where we’re very good and nights where were not as good, and I’m glad we have another opportunity to show we can play a lot better than we did tonight.”

Things nearly turned ugly twice. Late in the second quarter, Matt Dunwoody delivered a late hit to McShea after he scored his third goal of the game to extend the lead to 9-1. That was the only penalty called all night, as the refs opted to let the teams play for the most part. In the final minutes of the game, Oakton goalie Connor Anderson found himself in a brief shoving match after a race to the endline following a shot.

“I think guys get their blood pressure going,” Curran said. “We’ve been on the losing side of that too, and it’s definitely not fun, but I thought we did a good job of showing some composure.”

While the Cougars have a week of rest before their next game, the Rams will face a familiar foe in Chantilly on Thursday. The Rams took home the district crown last year with a 9-4 win over the Chargers, but fell 11-9 at home on April 6 in what ended up being their only loss in Virginia AAA play. Curran knows that it will take a sustained effort to repeat as champions.

“I thought we had a good first half, and granted we did substitute a little more liberally in the second half, but our first team guys still didn’t play as well as I thought they should have in the second half,” Curran said. “It’s playing a full 48 minutes.”