Bye weeks are designed to provide calming and healing times for high-school football teams. That wasn’t entirely the case for the Washington-Liberty Generals.
The Liberty District leading and undefeated Generals (7-0, 3-0) resume play tonight, Oct. 25 with a 7 p.m. league home game against the McLean Highlanders (3-4, 0-3), who have lost three straight contests.
The Generals are expected to win, but head coach Josh Shapiro warns that a struggle is possible, because the team will be without at least three key players.
Starting center Samuel Bekele will miss the game with an injury and wide receiver/defensive back Mikey Barber is lost for the remainder of the campaign, also with an injury. A number of others won’t suit up because of non-football-related issues.
“I don’t know how this happens in a bye week, but we have a banged-up group right now,” Shapiro said. “Seems like we had a bye and lost guys.”
The good news is starting quarterback Matthew Abramson is expected to return after missing a large part of W-L’s last game with concussion issues.
“He has looked sharp and well in practice,” Shapiro said of Abramson, who has had an efficient and productive season through seven games.
If Washington-Liberty defeats McLean, the Generals will improve to 8-0 for the first time since 1956, when the school was known as Washington-Lee and compiled a 10-0 regular-season record.
Arlington’s two other Liberty District football teams — the Wakefield Warriors (2-6, 0-4) and Yorktown Patriots (5-3, 2-2) — have bye weeks and won’t play until the following weekend.
