Through four games this season, Arlington’s high-school football teams have combined for the most wins at this point since the 2014 campaign.
Each of the four squads has at least one victory entering this coming weekend’s game-five action, for a total of 10 overall. That total is the most since the four combined for 12 wins at the same time 11 seasons ago.
This fall, the undefeated Washington-Liberty Generals own the best record at 4-0. The Wakefield Warriors are the next best at 3-1, the Yorktown Patriots are 2-2 and the Bishop O’Connell Knights 1-3.
Wakefield’s 3-1 start is a big reason for the improvement. The Warriors won just twice last fall and were 0-10 in the previous two seasons.
The current win total might have been at least one higher had not W-L and O’Connell played in a season-opening contest, with the Generals winning.
“Maybe we could have won against another team, but that was a rivalry we wanted to restart,” O’Connell coach Todd Sabatino said of the Washington-Liberty meeting.
O’Connell and W-L last took the field against each other 42 years ago.
“O’Connell played us tough, Wakefield is better and Yorktown is always good,” Washington-Liberty coach Josh Shapiro told ARLnow. “It could be a good season for Arlington football.”
Through four games a year ago, the Arlington teams had eight victories, with Washington-Liberty again leading the way, standing 4-0. The total was nine wins in that time frame in 2023 (W-L again was 4-0), six in 2022 and five in 2021.
The lowest victory total since 2014 was only three victories over the first four weeks in 2018.
As the regular season toughens over the final six games, it’s uncertain if the winning ways will continue for the Arlington teams — or if any of the four will finish with winning records.
Those remaining games include all-Arlington contests between Wakefield, W-L and Yorktown, while private-school O’Connell will not play another Arlington opponent.
The last season all four teams avoided losing records was 2014, as they combined for 26 wins. That season, Wakefield was 8-4, Yorktown 7-5, Washington-Liberty (then Washington-Lee) 6-5 and O’Connell 5-5.
Having already faced O’Connell, Washington-Liberty this year will become the first Arlington football team since 1998 to play all three county rivals in the same season. In 1998, Yorktown played all three when it lost an early-season contest to O’Connell. The Knights had not played any of the Arlington opponents again until this season.
This weekend’s games: In action Friday, Sept. 26, Washington-Liberty plays at the Centreville Wildcats (2-1) at 7 p.m. in a non-district clash and Yorktown visits the McLean Highlanders (1-3) at the same time in a Liberty District contest. Wakefield has a bye this weekend. On Saturday, Sept. 27, O’Connell plays on the road at Landon School (3-1) at 1:30 p.m. in Bethesda in a non-conference tilt.
