MORGANTOWN — George Washington scored five goals in the last three-and-a-half minutes of the third quarter to rally past University and win the 2024 WVSLA Division I State Championship Saturday at Mylan Pharmaceuticals Stadium Saturday evening.
“It’s surreal, we finally put it all together,” said GW coach Brad White.
The Patriots had lost their last five state championship appearances.
“We had a great week of practice and deep down I had a feeling that tonight we were going to have at least a good game, I didn’t know we were going to have a great game,” White said.
The first half of play was evenly matched between the two talented teams. The two sides combined for seven goals as GW led 4-3 after a frenetic first quarter, but UHS was able to slow things down and score the equalizer in the second for a 4-4 tie at halftime.
“We knew going into the game a slower pace of play would favor us,” UHS coach Brian Houk said. “GW is really good in chaos and transition and we did a good job of controlling the pace in the first half. But where they broke away was they did a really good job of creating that chaos and those unsettled situations. It was just a little too much for us to handle for us down the stretch.”
The tide started to shift towards the chaos the Patriots thrive in after halftime when Luke Jarrett scored just seven seconds into the third quarter.
“When we scored in the first seven seconds of the third quarter, that was a dagger,” White said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a goal scored in seven seconds. Then we just started running and started feeding off of each other.”
UHS responded with two goals from Colin Carrey and Connor Montgomery to take a 6-5 lead, but that was the last time the Hawks would control play.
Jarrett started the Patriots’ flurry with a goal at the 3:39 mark of the third quarter. GW scored again less than a minute later to lead 7-6 and then Jarrett scored again less than 15 seconds after that to lead 8-6.
Jarrett was named the game’s MVP finishing with six goals.
“What do you say about Luke?” White posed. “It’s uncanny what he can do and his skills are amazing.”
Jarrett scored his fifth goal with just 17 seconds left in the frame and GW tacked on another with 00.1 seconds remaining to lead 10-6 entering the fourth.
“The ones they scored at the end were back-breakers,” Houk said. “We gave up a few too many easy ones.”
GW goalie Ethan Tyler was sensational in the net, finishing with 13 saves.
Behind Jarrett’s six goals, Preston Roach scored three times, Liam Johnston scored twice and Isaac Collins, Jack Gorrell and Jackson Stanley all scored once.
Carey scored four times to lead UHS. Montgomery scored twice and Daniel Kaddar and Noah Dower scored one each.
Despite falling short of the ultimate goal, it was still a breakthrough season for the Hawks.
“I described it as smashing the door down,” Houk said. “It was great to make it here, we went through a lot of adversity to get to this game, we beat a lot of great teams…I’m still going to have a lot of really fond memories of this season.
