The month of December is the busiest time of the long campaign for girls and boys varsity basketball teams across Arlington and Northern Virginia.
During those 31 days, some squads will play as many as 10 to 12 games, including contests in a variety of tournaments.
The 2025 season was again a success, as usual, for the Bishop O’Connell Knights. But the girls high-school volleyball team fell short in its quest for postseason tournament championships.
O’Connell finished with a 22-3 overall record and advanced as far as the semifinals in both the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference and Division I state private-school tournaments.
The starting quarterbacks at Arlington’s four high-school football teams have received all-league honors, rewarding their strong performances during the 2025 fall season.
Three of those players passed for more than 2,000 yards, the other for nearly 1,000. None were starters for any of the Arlington teams in 2024, yet they made a big impact in their initial season.
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.
For a fifth season, the Bishop O’Connell Knights girls field-hockey team continued to find success under the leadership of Megan Sullivan.
This fall, the high school squad won the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference tournament for the first time, nipping top seed St. John’s, 1-0, in the championship match.
A cross-country season that began strong and seldom faltered finished with the Bishop O’Connell Knights boys cross-country team winning the Division I private-school state championship for the first time since 2000.
Improving from fifth place in last year’s meet, the Knights brought home the title Nov. 6 on the 5,000-meter Panorama Farms course near Charlottesville. O’Connell finished ahead of second place and defending state champion Potomac School.
The Bishop O’Connell Knights bounced back from a major defeat in regional action to win the four-team Northern Virginia Independent Schools State Invitational girls soccer tournament.
With a 2-0 home victory over the third-seed St. Paul VI Catholic Panthers in the Thursday (Oct. 6) title game, the top-seeded Knights (14-2-1) won the crown for the second straight year and fourth time in five seasons.
A fifth straight defeat resulted in a double-whammy of bad news for the Wakefield Warriors in Liberty District high-school football action on Halloween eve.
Wakefield’s 42-22 road loss to the Herndon Hornets officially eliminated the Warriors (3-6, 0-5) from a region playoff berth, and means the team will have a losing overall record in its final regular-season contest no matter what.
The strategy of running as a tight group for large portions of the race helped the Bishop O’Connell Knights win two significant boys cross-country championships this fall.
The most recent was a state title, coming Tuesday afternoon (Oct. 21) in Newport News when the Knights won the nine-team State Catholic Cross Country high-school crown on the flat and tight-turned 5,000-meter Newport News Park course.
A soccer season that began with uncertainty when two standout players unexpectedly did not return has become yet another significant winning campaign for the Bishop O’Connell Knights.
The girls high-school team began the week in first place in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference with a 6-0-1 mark with five shutouts, and stood 10-1-1 overall. O’Connell is expected to be the top seed in the upcoming conference tournament.
The latest two inductees in the Arlington Sports Hall of Fame are the first from any high-school soccer team, girls or boys, in the local sports pantheon’s nearly 70-year history.
The Oct. 8 induction dinner, held at the Knights of Columbus on Little Falls Road, enshrined Alberto Starace and Gabriella “Kika” Toulouse as the latest honorees in a hall of fame that stretches back to the 1950s.
Although neither high-school football team has won many games in recent seasons, the Bishop O’Connell Knights and Bishop Ireton Cardinals still play their version of a Super Bowl each fall.
The annual contest pits the longtime Washington Catholic Athletic Conference (WCAC) private-school rivals each year in a regular-season clash. A victory earns 12 months of bragging rights and, usually, a berth into the WCAC Metro Division playoffs.
