Oakton Sends Seniors Off in Style

After a pair of one-goal losses came as the result of second-half collapses, Oakton finally got it right. Barely. Patrick Goulding, Evan Lalande, Chris Stevens and Cory Harris scored two goals each, and Jonathan Lohmann made nine saves, four of which came in the fourth quarter, to preserve a 13-11 win over O’Connell on senior night and end a three-game losing streak.

Sean Ohlhaver led the Knights with four goals, but was held scoreless after the third quarter.

The win is a welcome relief for Oakton, who lost to Chantilly 10-9 during a spring break tournament – the second time this year the Chargers edged the Cougars by one goal — and on Tuesday to Robinson, 11-10. The Cougars led both of those games at halftime, and looked as if they might suffer the same fate Friday.

After building a 13-7 lead early in the fourth quarter, the Knights responded. Josh Trimble and Kevin O’Malley each scored twice during a 4-0 run in a four-minute span to close the gap to two, but Oakton was able to maintain possession for the final minute and a half to ensure the victory.

Despite allowing the late surge, Lohmann came up with four crucial saves in the final period, including reaching all the way across the goal to stop Trimble on a two-on-one break.

“He stepped up. We decided to go with Johnny and he did a great job,” head coach Grif Barhight said of Lohmann, who started in place of Connor Anderson.

Oakton, who was already locked into the three seed heading into the start of the Concorde District tournament next week, will take on Centreville on Friday with a semifinal berth on the line. While Friday’s game may not have had an impact on playoff position, honoring the 2011 seniors provided a little extra motivation.

“We talked about it before the game, to make sure we got it done for them,” Barhight said. “Those guys all played very hard and very well.”

After an inefficient start to a man-up opportunity, Sean Schweiker found Goulding inside for a goal that matched Oakton’s largest lead of the night at 13-7. That ended a flurry of offense from both teams to start the fourth quarter. Less than a minute after Evan Lalande won the opening face off the fourth quarter and took it himself for a goal, Sean Navin scored while getting knocked around in heavy traffic in front of the net. Less than 30 seconds later, O’Malley scored his first of the night for O’Connell to cut the deficit back to five.

Ohlhaver and Joe Kelly scored late in the third quarter to give O’Connell consecutive goals for the first time in the game and bring the score to 10-6 heading into the fourth. Ohlhaver also scored the opening goal of the second half before Stevens and Lalande added tallies for Oakton, Lalande’s goal again coming on a solo effort after a face off win.

The second quarter was Oakton’s most dominant as they outscored the Knights 5-2 thanks in large part to the man advantage and Harris factoring in three goals. The freshman made a nice spin move to create a scoring chance, and minutes later made another move from the top of the box before finding Stevens for a goal. He topped his scoring off after catching a long clear at the top of the box and finding plenty of room to walk in and fire a shot past Pat Lilburn.

Neither team was able to get into rhythm in the early going, but it was Oakton who struck first and built some momentum. Sean Schweiker fed Elijah Smith on a give and go to open the scoring, and after O’Connell responded with the tying goal, the Cougars added two more to end the first quarter, the first coming when Sean Miller found Schweiker during a man-up situation, and the second coming with 14.9 seconds left when Michael Durst made a couple nifty moves and beat Lilburn.