The 6D North Region high-school football championship game has all the makings of a classic showdown, with plenty in common among the teams.
On Saturday (Nov. 30) at 1 p.m. in Vienna, the Washington-Liberty Generals will face the host Madison Warhawks in the tournament final.
Both are undefeated with 12-0 records. Each is a league champion — Washington-Liberty in the Liberty District and Madison in the Concorde. Madison is the tourney’s top seed with W-L the No. 2. Each has the ability to score lots of points while allowing few.
For Washington-Liberty, the 12-0 start in 2024 is the team’s best in program history, with the dozen victories the most in a single season.
Madison will be playing in its fifth straight region final and is the four-time defending champion. W-L last played in a region final in 1975, losing to the Annandale Atoms, and according to records has lost 16 straight matchups against Madison dating back 50 years.
What the 2024 squads don’t have is familiarity. They have met little in recent years, with the last a Madison blowout in Vienna in a first-round game of the 2022 region tournament.
In that contest, the Warhawks led 42-0 at halftime and won 56-6. The Generals didn’t score until the fourth quarter, gaining just 136 total yards while allowing 329.
Washington-Liberty comes into the contest confident and hopeful the Nov. 30 result will be different.
“That playoff game in 2022 was a disaster. Everything went wrong and was wrong,” Washington-Liberty coach Josh Shapiro said. “We had guys sick and crying on the sidelines.”
Entering that game, Washington-Liberty was dealing with a lot not related to football. Many players and starters either missed the game with the flu or were suffering symptoms. Also, W-L athlete Braylon Meade had been killed a day earlier in a traffic accident caused by a drunk driver.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have played that game, but the players really wanted to,” Shapiro said. “We had no energy and Madison was very good.”
Shapiro said keys to the Nov. 30 final will be handling Madison’s physicality along the lines, playing confidently and physical themselves, and trying to contain the Warhawks’ Dominic Knicely and quarterback Cael Yates.
Knicely is a scoring threat every time he touches the ball as runningback, receiver or kick returner. He has scored multiple touchdowns at each position this fall, including punt and kickoff returns. Yates is a threat as a passer and runner.
“We have to move the ball on offense and can’t give them the ball with turnovers and mistakes,” Shapiro said.
The winner of the Nov. 30 region final will advance to the Virginia High School League four-team Class 6 state tournament. Semifinals are Saturday, Dec. 7.
NOTES: Madison and Washington-Liberty faced just one common opponent this season, the Marshall Statesmen. Both won big, W-L 42-13 and Madison 35-7 … Prior to that 2022 game, the last meeting between Washington-Liberty and Madison was in 2018 … Washington-Liberty has lost 16 straight times to Madison, including many blowouts. There was a 74-15 loss in 1982 during that stretch, and four shutouts. The Generals last defeated the Warhawks in 1974, winning 30-8 when the school was known as Washington-Lee.
