The 19 combined victories amassed this fall by the four varsity high-school football teams in Arlington were three fewer than during the 2024 campaign.
The drop-off can be attributed to the Washington-Liberty Generals having five fewer wins than a year ago, when the team achieved a single-season program best 12 victories.
Washington-Liberty finished 7-4 overall this year, as did the Liberty District champion Yorktown Patriots, with the Patriots having a net increase of one victory from 2024.
The Wakefield Warriors improved by one victory to three wins, and the Bishop O’Connell Knights matched last year’s win total of two.
Overall, the four teams finished with a combined record of 19-24, compared to 22-23 a year ago.
The last time the foursome combined for a winning record was going 23-22 in 2019, a season sparked by Yorktown’s 11-2 record and region-tournament runner-up finish. Wakefield and Washington-Liberty each won five games, while O’Connell won twice.
The wins would have been more this season, but the four teams combined to lose their final 14 games. Washington-Liberty, Yorktown and O’Connell all lost first-round playoff games. Wakefield did not earn a playoff berth.
Two of Yorktown’s losses were by a combined eight points, both to the South Lakes Seahawks.
Of the four teams, probably just Washington-Liberty and Yorktown would be satisfied with their number of victories this season.
The Generals lost numerous starters from last year’s Liberty District champion 12-1 squad that finished second in the 6D North Region tournament, ending up with a 2-1 playoff record.
This year, W-L finished third in the district at 4-2, losing league games to Yorktown and the Langley Saxons.
“We lost a lot from last year, so there were many questions when the season began,” said W-L coach Josh Shapiro, who has coached the team for 19 seasons and has 95 career wins. “We weren’t sure at first what we would have.”
There were also big questions about Yorktown, which had a new head coach in Alec Hicks. He followed Bruce Hanson, who coached the Patriots for 40 years. After a 1-2 start, Yorktown bounced back and got on a roll to win six of its final seven regular-season games.
With some system and scheme changes this season, Hicks explained it took a while for the team to gel and all get on the same page.
“Our players had to adjust to new offensive, defensive and special-teams schemes,” Hicks told ARLnow.
Although Wakefield continued to improve from consecutive 0-10 seasons in 2022 and 2023, as head coach Clarence Martin said, the Warriors had hoped for better than three wins this fall and possibly a region playoff berth, especially after a 3-1 start.
After a close 14-10 road loss to Washington-Liberty in week five, Wakefield didn’t win again, finishing 0-6 in the Liberty District for a fourth straight season.
The Warriors fell behind early in all six of their final games, rallied late in some of those contests but were too far behind to catch up.
Injuries to multiple key starting players played a big role in a second-straight two-win season for O’Connell. At the campaign’s outset, Knights’ head coach Todd Sabatino and his players were optimistic about having a winning season, especially with what was anticipated as a favorable non-league schedule.
As the injuries mounted, losses followed, including two by close margins against non-conference opponents. Plus, some of those non-conference opponents had stronger seasons and were better than originally expected.
O’Connell defeated Washington Catholic Athletic Conference rival Bishop Ireton, 33-28, in week seven, then lost its final four games.
In all, the 19 wins were about average for the Arlington teams the past half-dozen seasons. Prior to that stretch, the four squads didn’t combine for as many victories for four straight years.
