The Yorktown Patriots won the biggest football victory of the regular season over the weekend, one of many accomplishments for the high-school sports program in recent weeks.
Other notable achievements included two postseason championships won by the girls cross-country team and an individual girls golf highlight.
Football: In football, Yorktown beat the host Washington-Liberty Generals, 31-28, in a momentum-shifting Liberty District all-Arlington County clash on Oct. 31.
With its third win in a row, Yorktown finished the regular season with a 6-4 overall record, a 5-1 district mark and a second straight county championship, going 2-0 against those rivals.
Washington-Liberty (6-3, 4-1) and Yorktown are tied for second in the district behind the Langley Saxons (7-2, 5-0). If W-L defeats Langley on Nov. 6 in the final regular-season game for those two teams, all three of those squads will be considered district champions.
“We will be rooting for Washington-Liberty,” Yorktown coach Alec Hicks told ARLnow.
In Yorktown’s win over W-L, the Patriots fell behind 7-0, then rallied to build leads of 21-7 and 28-14 before winning 31-28 on a 30-yard field goal by Felix Gomez with a minute to play.
“Hats off to them,” Washington-Liberty coach Josh Shapiro said of Yorktown. “Their guys we knew would play well, like Jack [McCorry], did. We kept coming back and showed a lot of fight and resilience, but Jack had a very good game and we knew he could do that.”
Senior quarterback Jack McCorry engineered Yorktown’s 11-play winning field-goal drive as he had his most productive overall game this season. McCorry was 18 of 30 passing for 227 yards, had scoring throws of six and 37 yards, ran 14 yards for a touchdown and rushed for 35 yards.
Hicks said the performance was probably McCorry’s best this season, especially passing.
“Jack kept coming through all game long when it counted,” the coach said. “The last drive he led was amazing. As a team, we put things together well for all four quarters and we kept fighting and rose to the occasion.”
McCorry’s touchdown passes were well-thrown corner routes into the end zone to Boston Izzo (five catches, 68 yards) for 37 yards and Alex Randisi (nine catches, 124 yards) for six. Also, Izzo was the holder on the winning field goal.
As a defensive back during the win, McCorry — who will attend the U.S. Naval Academy — had the game-clinching interception with 19 seconds to play.
Alex Len had three catches for 29 yards and, on defense, had a 45-yard interception return for a late second-quarter touchdown that gave Yorktown a 14-7 halftime lead. Isaac Eckrote had a sack for Yorktown.
Last year’s game between Yorktown and W-L was also close, with the host Patriots winning 31-24 in overtime.
This season’s game-winning field goal by Gomez was his third. The others were against the Herndon Hornets and, in a 3-0 home win, the Marshall Statesmen. Overall, the senior has booted nine field goals this season.
Against W-L, he also kicked four extra points and punted four times for 178 yards, with each landing inside the W-L 20-yard line.
Prior to defeating W-L, Yorktown’s previous two wins were 26-23 over host Herndon and 27-2 over the Wakefield Warriors in another all-county showdown.
McCorry (96 yards rushing) also led the winning field-goal drive against Herndon and ran for two touchdowns in the victory. Jack Ezzeddin (113 yards rushing) added a scoring run. The Patriots had 254 yards rushing, with Jamari Washington adding 44. Len and Peter Madden had interceptions.
Gomez booted two field goals in the Herndon contest.
Against Wakefield, McCorry (26 yards) and Ezzeddin (85) each ran for two touchdowns and Washington added 29 yards on the ground. On defense, Trenten Ruffner had two interceptions and Owen Quentin and Marcus Bruder had one each.
Cross country: For the first time in program history, the Yorktown girls cross-country team won district and region championships in the same season.
The high-school squad first defended its title to finish first in the Liberty District meet with a team score of 39 points. Then, a week later, it captured the 6D North Region crown with a 53 total. Both meets were run on the Burke Lake Park Course.
Next for Yorktown is the Virginia High School League’s Class 6 state meet, which the team has never won. Having finished sixth last season and eighth in 2024, the Patriots are expected to be a top challenger for this year’s state crown.
Yorktown coach Emily Stewart said a key to winning the region meet was the number of Patriots who passed runners from other schools and improved their placing in the last half mile.
“We had a lot of movement late in the race,” Stewart said. “This team runs so well together. The runners celebrate what each other do, not what they do individually. They are always very positive, saying things like, ‘You can do this.'”
Leading Yorktown at the district and region meets was junior Molly Hardwick. She won the district in 17:33, then placed second in the region in 16:55, a time that set another girls team record for the fastest time on that course.
Hardwick also finished second in last year’s region and state meets, after winning the district.
Senior Ali Mathews placed seventh, then eighth in this year’s district and region meets, with junior Ayla Mehmood eighth/12th, freshman Keeley Gardner 12th/14th and junior Cecilia Floom 11th/17th.
Sophomore Aria Hedderly was 14th in the district meet, then 28th in the region, and freshman Vivian Fatouros was 21st in each race. Sophomores Charlotte Woodrow and Lanier Hutton and junior Sofia Rosales finished in the top 31 in the district meet.
Yorktown’s top seven runners all ran faster times in the region compared to the district meet, and six of the runners had personal-best times on the course at the region meet.
Golf: Yorktown senior Ginger Beall this fall became the first player from an Arlington high school to play in three Girls State Open golf tournament championships.
Beall carded a round of 78 to tie for 16th in the 18-hole Virginia High School League tourney at Heritage Oaks Golf Course in Harrisonburg. The score left her 10 strokes behind the winning score. Beall’s round of 38-40-78 included three birdies, all on the back nine.
Beall qualified for the state open by shooting a 77 to tie for sixth at the 18-hole Northern Zone Qualifier round at Twin Lakes Golf Course in Clifton. She was one of 12 players in a field of 67 to earn a state berth.
The 77 was Beall’s lowest round in four postseason tournaments this season.
A number of other Yorktown players participated in the region qualifier, but none earned a state berth or broke 90.
Beall shot 82 in each of her other two appearances in the State Open as a junior and sophomore.
In this fall’s Liberty District and 6D Northern Region co-ed championship tournaments, Beall shot rounds of 78 and 86, respectively, to help Yorktown finish third in each. The 78 was the team’s second-lowest individual score in the district tournament.
In a non-high-school event this fall, Beall won the club championship at Washington Golf & Country Club in Arlington.
Field hockey: The season ended for the Patriots (14-5) with a first-round 3-1 loss to the Madison Warhawks in the 6D North Region tournament.
Prior to the region, Yorktown went 1-1 in the Liberty District tourney, losing in the semifinals to the champion Marshall Statesmen.
