The standout fall season enjoyed by multiple Bishop O’Connell High School sports teams was highlighted when four different head coaches for the private-school Knights athletic program received Coach of the Year accolades.
Earning Washington Catholic Athletic Conference Coach of the Year honors were Megan Sullivan for girls field hockey, Chris Jennings for boys soccer and Alerto Starace for girls soccer. Mehdi El Alaoui was the Division I state Coach of the Year for girls volleyball.
The girls volleyball team won WCAC and Division I state-tournament championships and finished with a 28-4-2 record, winning its final 10 matches, eight by 3-0 scores.
Starace’s soccer team finished second in the WCAC tourney, won the four-team Northern Virginia Independent Schools State Invitational championship and finished with a 16-2-3 record.
Starace has been O’Connell’s coach for 39 seasons and has 542 wins with the Knights. He also won 129 games as the head coach at Madison High School in Vienna years ago, giving him 671 career victories as a high-school coach.
Sullivan’s field-hockey team enjoyed its best season in her four years as head coach.
The Knights reached high-water marks in single-season victories with 16 and advanced to conference and state-tournament championships for the first time. The top-seeded Knights lost to St. John’s, 1-0, in the WCAC final, then to No. 2-seed and multiple-time defending champion Norfolk Academy, 3-0, in the Division I private-school state-tourney title match.
Jennings’ boys soccer team finished 17-5, the most wins in a season since he took over as head coach 13 years ago. The squad had eight shutouts and reached the tournament semifinals of both the WCAC and Division I state competitions.
The four O’Connell teams combined for 77 wins.
