“This team has run into challenges all year long with injuries and this and that, and somehow they’re able to pull it together and make things happen,” Coach Andy Katz said. “Last year we were in control of most matches and most tournaments, but this year we’re relying on different guys. It’s a team effort across the board.”

Paul VI stops Ryken’s run, wins its first WCAC wrestling championship

Four Bears took home individual crowns — James Hanley (120 pounds), Joe Papalia (126), Max Murray (144) and French Pope (190) — and a handful of semifinal wins that didn’t result in championships were also pivotal. Domingo Escudero, Connor Koegel and Owen Kelly defeated opponents they had lost to in the regular season, and Makana Neverosky stepped in for the injured Will Levy and nearly won the 138-pound title.

Landon placed 12 wrestlers on the podium, with 10 competing in finals. The program’s recent dominance — it has not lost an IAC event since the pandemic — has placed a bull’s eye on its back, but the Bears haven’t flinched.

“The more you win, the more pressure you feel to continue to win. But in wrestling, that’s always the way it is,” Katz said. “Our focus has been the same message: ‘You trained your mind; you trained your body. If you go out there and do your job, good things are going to happen.’ ”

Two years ago, Reagan Phillips was coveted by more than 30 colleges. The St. Andrew’s Episcopal swimmer eventually committed to South Carolina over UCLA, LSU and Miami.

Phillips, now a senior, has never fully returned to her previous form, though. She underwent a mentally challenging junior season followed by knee surgery this past August.

Anxiety and stress formed in her mind during her junior year. Phillips said she endured a significant mental block that only worsened once her performance faltered.

Phillips’s times this year have not matched her sophomore season’s, but she said she is rediscovering her love of the sport. A six-week break from the water helped.

“Having the time off made me really miss the sport,” she said.

At Saturday’s Washington Metropolitan Prep School Swimming and Diving League championship meet, Phillips was a fraction of a second away from winning the 50-yard freestyle (23.68). She also dropped 0.89 seconds from her 100-yard backstroke time (59.23).

It has been a gradual buildup to replicating the times that once placed Phillips in the top 150 for her class. Phillips said she is still not 100 percent, but she hopes to be in peak form when she gets to Columbia, S.C.

With the team title already wrapped up before the penultimate event of the Howard County indoor track and field championships Jan. 29, Howard Coach Tyler Wade pulled senior Joseph Ensor out of the 800-meter race.

Though he wasn’t able to run one of his favorite events, Ensor understood the decision. The Lions were already looking forward to this week’s region meet, thanks to his performances earlier in the day.

Ensor cruised to first-place finishes in the 1,600- and 3,200-meter races, which helped Howard (118 points) unseat reigning Maryland Class 2A champion Oakland Mills (80) and win the Howard County boys’ title. Oakland Mills won on the girls’ side with 113.5 points; Howard finished second with 101.

“[Ensor] definitely likes to kind of take charge of a race, and he has the talent to do so,” Wade said. “I know his goals are to win three individual medals in the state championship, and if we want to win — we have our overall team goals of winning a state title — that would be very beneficial.”

Howard’s Rayyan Dheini and ​​Maxwell VomSaal also scored in both the 1,600- and 3,200-meter races — a common theme for a deep Lions team.

Howard had multiple athletes score in every field event aside from shot put. Zamir Herald won the triple jump, just ahead of teammates Kenny Stevens and Diego McCullough, and finished fourth in the high jump behind McCullough. A multitude of scorers across events lifted the Lions to their first county title since 2020.

“I tell my kids all the time a first place in the pole vault is the same gold medal as the first place in the [55-meter dash] — it’s the same 10 points,” Wade said. “When you develop that early on and give that kid a sense of pride, they tend to work harder, they believe in themselves.”

Despite Montgomery County typically dominating conversation in the Maryland Student Hockey League, South River (out of Anne Arundel County) has stared down a difficult schedule and could be a serious contender within its division.

Following Coach Zachary Arden’s philosophy to seek out the region’s biggest challenges, the Seahawks have played one of the toughest slates among their MSHL counterparts.

Senior left winger Ty Copertino said a 5-4 win over Baltimore’s Mount Saint Joseph “was a big momentum shift in our season, starting it off and just letting us know that we’re good enough to beat these private schools.”

South River (8-8) went on to face most of the top teams in the region, including Landon, Georgetown Prep and Archbishop Spalding. Although those games ended with losses, Copertino said the challenges prepared his team to climb the standings in the MSHL Eastern division.

With one game left in the regular season, against Annapolis/Arundel/Chessie on Friday, the Seahawks are eager to show there’s talent outside Montgomery County.

“They’re expected to be the best,” Copertino said. “But I really think that our [division] is underrated. We’ve always competed with these hard teams like Churchill and Whitman. I wouldn’t say that they’re better than us at all.”

Battlefield captured first place in the Cedar Run District final, which it hosted Jan. 29. The Bobcats, chasing an opportunity to avenge last year’s second-place finish at states, will send seven gymnasts to Tuesday’s Virginia Class 6 Region B meet, the final step before getting back to the stage where they came up just short a year ago.

Battlefield had the top scorer in all four events. Jordan Ignacio led the way with a 9.725 on floor and a 9.375 on vault. Giselle Forman took first place on bars with a 9.350, and Ryan Grothoff rounded out the Bobcats’ impressive day with a 9.875 on beam.

Addyson Ardigo, Taylor Strotheide, Addison Fitzer and Diana Nguyen Alvarez also finished in the top six in their events, qualifying them for regionals and rounding out a deep group that will represent Battlefield in Nokesville on Tuesday.

Ignacio, who claimed the state title on floor last season, has led Battlefield all season as it eyes a chance to upend two-time defending state champion Lake Braddock, which also won its district final last week. The senior won’t pursue gymnastics in college, making the next two weeks her last chance to punctuate a successful career that’s only missing a team state championship.