The spring sports season is underway in full with regular-season action taking place for all of Arlington’s high-school teams.
Many days, with the exception of Sunday, have multiple contests for all of the teams in baseball, softball, soccer, lacrosse and track-and-field.
Two young runners from the Bishop O’Connell High School boys indoor track-and-field team placed high in the mile at a late-season meet.
Jayse Brefczynski had one of his most successful races of the indoor season when the sophomore won the mile in 4:34.24, with his freshman teammate Peter Fleenor in sixth in 4:43.43.
Two former high-school teammates for the Bishop O’Connell Knights squared off on the basketball court during a recent men’s college game.
In the semifinals of the Coastal Athletic Association tournament, Christian May was a starting junior guard/forward for the Towson Tigers and junior guard Cavan Reilly started for the Delaware Blue Hens, which won 82-72.
The top two scorers for the Bishop O’Connell Knights boys high-school basketball team this season earned all-state honors for their performances.
Junior guard and leading scorer Darius Bivins was a first-team Division I private-school selection in Virginia. Senior guard Shane Lincoln, the Knights’ No. 2 scorer, made the second team.
A pressbox with accompanying box seats, all located behind home plate, are new additions to the Bishop O’Connell High School baseball field for the 2025 spring season.
The new look was completed in recent weeks, prior to the Knights’ March 7 home opener against the Potomac School Panthers, a 6-3 O’Connell win.
Talk about durability — Alyssa Hayashi was the definition of that word during her college career for the Swarthmore College women’s basketball team.
Over four seasons, the Bishop O’Connell High School graduate started 99 of the 101 games she played in for the Division III team.
The spring sports season is beginning in earnest starting this week and next for the majority of teams at all four high schools in Arlington.
A few teams have played regular-season events this week, while others are still participating in scrimmage events.
As the fourth seed, the Bishop O’Connell Knights made a big impact by playing three tight games and finishing a close second in the Division I private-school boys state basketball tournament.
The Knights (23-10) lost in overtime to the No. 2 seed Highland School Hawks of Warrenton, 56-51, in the Saturday (March 1) championship game at Benedictine College Prep in Richmond.
The 2024-25 boys high school basketball season ended with three longtime head coaches of Arlington teams having a combined lifetime victory total of 1,304 games.
Of the three, Joe Wootten of the Bishop O’Connell Knights has the most career wins with 558. Those are the most victories by any O’Connell boys basketball coach in program history.
Considering its vast past success over many years, lofty expectations are the case every season for the Bishop O’Connell Knights girls softball team.
Nothing will be different this spring, with the high-school squad coming off a perfect 23-0 season, owning a three-season 54-game winning streak and having won a combined 15 straight conference and private-school state-tournament championships.
The winter sports season is now complete for all four high schools in Arlington. Now it’s on to the busy multi-sport outdoor spring season.
The regular season is just getting started, with only a few events in the coming week, but many scrimmage contests are being played. The full regular-season schedules begin the week of March 17.
The Bishop O’Connell Knights had short-lived, one-game stays in the girls and boys Washington Catholic Athletic Conference basketball tournaments, each finishing 0-1.
The fourth-seeded boys high-school team (22-9) lost to the visiting and No. 5 seed St. John’s, 65-57, in a first-round game. The sixth-seed O’Connell girls (17-15) fell on the road, 80-41, to the No. 3 seed Bishop Ireton Cardinals.
