Despite days of preparation under their new head coach, the Washington-Liberty Generals came away unsatisfied in a recent match against a perennial Liberty District girls basketball power.
The visiting Generals led the Langley Saxons by five points early in the third quarter, but lost 49-41 to the defending district and 6D North Region tournament champions in the Jan. 5 high-school contest.
The solid 9-1 start enjoyed by the Washington-Liberty Generals this season is the best in at least 35 years for the girls high-school basketball team.
After a season-opening 10-point road loss to the Oakton Cougars, the W-L squad has run the table with nine straight victories.
Of the two Arlington squads that played in the annual eight-team George Long Holiday Hoops Tournament, the host Wakefield Warriors placed highest.
The boys high-school basketball team (8-2 overall) ended up in fifth place with a 2-1 record, playing in three close games in the popular 23-year-old holiday event, the only one of its kind in the county.
Grant Siebert didn’t realize at the time that learning to play center in youth flag football would pave the way for significant achievements as a high-school senior.
The Washington-Liberty Generals’ captain recently was chosen to the Virginia High School League’s Class 6 first-team on offense as the lone center. He is the first W-L offensive lineman chosen first-team all-state at any position in Josh Shapiro’s 19 seasons as the Generals’ head coach.
The rivalry is decades old, but there was something brand new in this season’s first of two regular-season all-Arlington girls neighborhood basketball clashes between the Washington-Liberty Generals and Yorktown Patriots.
The head coaches of both high-school teams are brand new this season as they led the Dec. 19 showdown at Washington-Liberty.
Added together, Arlington’s four boys high-school varsity teams are enjoying their collective best start of a basketball season in decades.
Through Dec. 13 action, the squads had a cumulative 20-3 overall record. One of those three losses was inevitable, as it came in a neighborhood rivalry contest between the Wakefield Warriors and Yorktown Patriots. Yorktown came away with the victory.
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.
A total of 17 players from Arlington’s three public high-school varsity football teams were chosen all-region for their performances during the 2025 season.
The two players chosen 6D North Region first-team on defense were seniors, who coincidentally wore uniform number 99. One was middle linebacker Sean Perry of the Wakefield Warriors and the other was lineman Bobby Shea of the Liberty District champion Yorktown Patriots.
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.
Athletes from three Arlington high schools provided the muscle to unload 2,000 Christmas trees in preparation for an annual fundraising sale.
Members of the Yorktown, Washington-Liberty and Wakefield crew teams, plus the Yorktown and W-L lacrosse squads, were up early this morning (Wednesday) to remove the Optimist Club of Arlington’s trees from three tractor-trailers that had arrived overnight from Galax, Va.
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 Arlington School Board is considering a possible change to the daily schedules at local high schools.
Staff laid out possible changes to the current “seven-period block schedule” at a School Board work session on Nov. 18. Options on the table, in addition to maintaining the status quo, include:
