The Washington-Liberty Generals girls varsity basketball team is adjusting well to a new coach, the loss of key players and the arrival of new faces.
In addition, first-year coach Horace “Buck” Willis is adapting to the new experience of leading a girls squad.
Willis served as an assistant coach for the Wakefield Warriors boys team for 23 seasons before being tapped as coach of the W-L girls squad earlier this year.
“The players have never been coached by me and my style before, and it’s going well,” Willis told ARLnow.
Through three games, Washington-Liberty has a 2-1 record, including two straight blowout wins over the Alexandria City Titans, 64-23, and the Mount Vernon Majors, 79-20, each on the Generals’ home court.
W-L opened the season on the road, losing 64-54 to the perennial 6D North Region power Oakton Cougars after having an early 5-0 lead.
Oakton is the defending Concorde District tournament champion, and also finished second in the region tourney a year ago. The Cougars return a number of top players and are expected to be a top district and region team again this winter.
“That was a big challenge to play at Oakton in our opener, and we had some jitters,” Willis said. “We had a couple of turnovers on our part that hurt us.”
The Generals have three returning starters in junior guard Kathryn Wagener and sisters Eve Jungman and Anna Jungman. Both are forwards; Eve is a senior and Anna is a sophomore. Eve Jungman missed half of last season due to a leg injury.
Wagener was a first-team all-Liberty District and second-team all-region player last winter. Eve Jungman was second-team all-district and Anna Jungman made the all-district rookie team.
W-L’s 2024-25 girls squad finished 17-9, second in the Liberty District tournament, and won a holiday tourney with a 3-0 record. The 17 wins were W-L’s most in a season in many years.
Wagener and Anna Jungman have been among the top scorers through three games. Other starters after three games have been senior guard Hannah Kelley — a backup last season — along with freshman guard Riley Krohl and senior guard Catherine Hogans.
Among the top substitutes are junior forward Luisa Moran, sophomore guard Dylan Plummer, junior forward Sonny Elm and junior guard Hailey Denton.
Many of the substitutes are first-year varsity players.
The Generals’ most recent victory was over Mount Vernon on Dec. 9, a team that had a 13-11 record last season. Washington-Liberty built a quick 7-0 lead and was on its way to the blowout victory.
Eve Jungman and Wagener led the scoring with 17 points each. Anna Jungman scored 11, Kelley made two three-pointers and scored eight and Hogans added seven with four rebounds.
Moran had five points and three boards, junior forward Louisa Erwin had four points and junior guard Morgan Youngdahl made a three-pointer to go with three rebounds, two steals and two assists. In all, 11 different players scored.
On defense, W-L had 28 steals, with Wagener having seven and Kelley and Anna Jungman five each. Anna Jungman was the rebounding leader with eight, and her sister Eve Jungman and Wagener had seven each.
“We played a little sloppy at first, but we played hard,” Willis said.
Washington-Liberty has upcoming non-district games in December against the perennial state contender and recent three-time champion Madison Warhawks in addition to other tough opponents Robinson, Colonial Forge and Colgan.
Wagener scored 18, Krohl nine and Plummer and Eve Jungman seven each against Oakton. The Generals led 5-0 in the game, then were behind 33-23 at halftime and trailed the rest of the way.
Anna Jungman netted 16, Wagener 12 and Eve Jungman and Kelley eight each against Alexandria City.
There is also a December district contest for the Generals against the Yorktown Patriots in a neighborhood clash between Arlington rivals. Yorktown (2-1) also lost to Oakton by 13 points earlier this season.
“Yorktown will be very tough too,” Willis said. “We wanted to get a tougher schedule early to get us ready for district games.”
Willis said the team has not set any specific expectations this season, other than to improve each game and get better.
NOTE: The 79 points that W-L scored against Mount Vernon were the team’s most in a single game in years.
