Familiar Arlington rivals will face off in this season’s Liberty District girls field-hockey tournament-championship match.
In that Friday (Oct. 25) high-school final, the top seed and three-time defending champion Yorktown Patriots (12-3) will host the No. 3 seed Washington-Liberty Generals (13-4) at 7 p.m.
Yorktown will be playing in the final for the fourth straight time, with the Generals appearing in the title match for the sixth time in eight years, so far without a victory.
Washington-Liberty did not play in last season’s title match, and the 2020 tourney was not held because of the pandemic.
In this season’s competition, each team won semifinal matches on Wednesday (Oct. 23) to reach the final. Yorktown rallied from an early one-goal deficit to rout the No. 4 seed and visiting Marshall Statesmen, 5-1, and Washington-Liberty nipped the host and No. 2 seed Langley Saxons, 1-0.
Leading Yorktown were Quincey Greene with three goals and Paige Baskin and Olivia Stafford with one each. Stafford had three assists and Reiser two. Sarah Kinzer earned the win in goal.
Greene tied the game at 1 with her first goal early in the second quarter. Just 34 seconds later, Reiser scored to give Yorktown the lead for good at 2-1.
Stafford assisted on both goals, as Yorktown led 2-1 at halftime.
Greene added a goal each in the third and fourth quarters as Yorktown pulled away for its 31st straight win against a district opponent over a four-season span.
In Washington-Liberty’s semifinal, Elle Pickard scored off a crossing pass from Riley Clouse with 9:58 left in the second quarter for the lone goal of the match. Kaitlyn Nowinski got the win in goal.
Yorktown received a first-round bye, with Washington-Liberty topping the visiting and sixth-seed McLean Highlanders, 2-1, in overtime in that round. Clouse scored the game-winning goal on a penalty-stroke situation. The first goal was scored by Pickard off an assist from Kelly McIntyre. Nowinski got the win in net.
During the regular season, Yorktown defeated Washington-Liberty, 4-0. The Generals have won three games in a row since that loss, with two shutouts.
Yorktown topped W-L by 5-0 and 9-2 scores in the 2021 and 2022 district-tourney finals.
