Despite days of preparation under their new head coach, the Washington-Liberty Generals came away unsatisfied in a recent match against a perennial Liberty District girls basketball power.
The visiting Generals led the Langley Saxons by five points early in the third quarter, but lost 49-41 to the defending district and 6D North Region tournament champions in the Jan. 5 high-school contest.
Trailing 25-20, Langley answered with a 10-0 run to give the Saxons the lead for good.
The loss snapped W-L’s nine-game winning streak as the Generals are off to their strongest start in many years, now owning a 9-2 overall record and standing 1-1 in the district.
Langley improved to 12-1 and 3-0 with its sixth straight victory.
The teams are expected to battle for the district title again this season, along with Arlington’s Yorktown Patriots. Langley downed W-L in last year’s district-tourney championship contest.
The squads have one more regular-season meeting this season, scheduled for Friday, Jan. 30 at Washington-Liberty.
“They outworked us,” first-year Generals’ coach Horace “Buck” Willis said about the loss to Langley. “They got a lot of offensive rebounds and killed us on the boards. After the game, our players were most upset about being outworked.”
Washington-Liberty also was hurt by multiple turnovers, and the Generals shot poorly, hitting just 6 of 26 shots from the floor in the second half.
With W-L fouling in an attempt to rally, Langley converted by making 12 fourth-quarter free throws.
“Langley has a good veteran coach [Amanda Baker] and they knew what they were doing,” Willis said. “They hurt us with pick-and-rolls on offense.”
Senior center Eve Jungman scored 14 points and had 10 rebounds and two blocks for W-L. She scored 10 points in the second half.
Also for the Generals, Kathryn Wagener scored 11 and had nine rebounds and two assists; Dylan Plummer made two three-pointers and scored six; Hannah Kelley scored five; Anna Jungman scored two, had five rebounds and four assists; and Camille Marston had six rebounds off the bench.
Langley was the second defending region champion Washington-Liberty played in as many games. Its previous contest was a comeback victory over the 2024-25 6C North Region winner Robinson Rams.
With the loss to Langley, Washington-Liberty is now 0-27 against the Saxons since joining the Liberty District in the 2014-15 season.
Yorktown improves to 6-4: The Yorktown girls improved to 6-4 and 2-1 in the district with an 87-31 blowout win over the visiting Herndon Hornets on Jan. 5 in district play.
Eleanor Mahshie had 20 points to lead the Patriots. Sam Donahue had 11 points and 10 rebounds and Olivia Shiplett also had a double-double with 10 points and as many boards. Lily Porter and Zainab Qaiyumi each had nine points.
In previous action, Yorktown finished 1-2 in a holiday tournament at Oakton High School. Shiplett was Yorktown’s all-tournament selection in the competition. She had 20 points in a win over Hylton, nine points against Robinson and eight versus Briar Woods.
Yorktown continues to play without injured starter Ainsley Lomas. She is recovering from an ankle sprain suffered earlier this season, and could return to action next month.
