The Gladiators claimed the 2A Maryland championship in 2021 and were finalists last season, in large part due to Lathrop’s attacking contributions.
“It’s a great example of the effort that is put into something that is your passion and how it translates to the play on the field,” Coach Vincente D’Antuono said of Lathrop’s success. “This wasn’t just bestowed upon her, it was a lot of work.”
Lathrop broke the county’s scoring record earlier in October with a six-goal performance in Glenelg’s regular season victory over Wilde Lake.
The senior will become the first Glenelg player to play in the High School Girls Soccer All-American Game in its 11-year history on Dec. 9 in Charleston. Good Counsel goalkeeper Maya Cheeseboro was also selected.
Glenelg (9-2-3) plays Southern in the 2A West II regional final with hopes of advancing to its third consecutive state tournament. Despite a few late-season stumbles after a 6-0-1 start to the year, the Gladiators can continue to rely on Lathrop’s attacking quality as they compete for another state title.
Last spring, six seniors on Colgan’s team graduated. Five went on to play in college. That bunch crucially included Brielle Kemavor, a top national recruit who is at BYU. After a state championship in 2021 and a second-place finish last fall, the Sharks had to reevaluate.
And still, somehow, they’re right back toward the top of Northern Virginia, with a 19-3 record and the region playoffs set to begin this week.
“We don’t talk about a deep run, we focus on the next game at hand,” Coach Keith Mesa said. “But it helps that we’ve had players — [junior] Skylar Johnson [and seniors] Paula Sigurani and Aubrey Hatch — who have been in those spots before.”
The team’s sustained dominance, it seemed, is the product of a designed development plan. The Sharks dub many of their first-year varsity players as “redshirt freshman,” emphasizing skill development to a particularly weighty extent. Now, their sophomores — four in the consistent rotation — are thriving after a rigid development path last year.
Still, a run into late November isn’t a guarantee. The region, highlighted by Colonial Forge, Battlefield, Patriot and North Stafford, is tougher than any the Sharks have faced before. Unlike most young teams, the Sharks have the talent to go far — if they can eliminate mistakes the coaching staff tried to work out of them during their redshirt seasons.
“The people who win high school volleyball matches are the ones who go in and make the fewest errors,” Mesa said. “But my kids are dialed in.”
The Washington International boys’ soccer team took its time getting going in Monday’s Potomac Valley Athletic Conference championship game, spending the first quarter of the match trying to keep possession and feel out its opponent, Sandy Spring Friends.
“We’re a team that doesn’t like to force anything,” Red Devils Coach Andrew Sopher said. “We try to just settle into the game and find our rhythm.”
In the 27th minute they found that rhythm with an opening goal from junior Harrison Rubin. With that, the offense took off. By halftime, Washington International had four goals. By the final whistle, it had eight. The 8-1 victory delivered the Red Devils an outright conference title and provided further proof the small private school from Northwest Washington is one of the area’s most consistent programs.
This is the second consecutive season the Red Devils (13-2) have won the PVAC regular season and tournament. This fall they have been especially dominant, their two defeats coming against local powerhouses Gonzaga and Landon.
Those losses came in the first week of the season, and the team has posted 13 straight victories since. Before Monday’s seven-goal victory, it beat Jewish Day, 7-0, in the conference semifinal.
“These last two performances have been the most complete I’ve seen in the last two years,” Sopher said. “So I just want this team to continue to play with confidence.”
As the PVAC champions, the Red Devils are expected to compete in the D.C. State Athletic Association tournament next week. Last season, they made a surprise appearance to the tournament championship game. This year, they will enter as a known commodity with a strong résumé.
Gloria Nantulya has won multiple Independent School League titles as the coach of Stone Ridge, but she thinks this may be the most cohesive team yet.
The unity was on display Friday when the Gators defeated Georgetown Visitation, 2-1, to become outright ISL regular season champions.
“Before the game our coach said that it’s going to take everyone to win this game, and I feel like everyone really did that and stepped up,” said sophomore Ainsley O’Connor, who scored both of the Gators’ goals. “Everyone does that every game and fills their role. Everyone’s equal on the team.”
Stone Ridge (13-2, 11-0 ISL) added to an impressive résumé that also includes wins over highly touted nonleague foes No. 6 Yorktown and No. 4 St. John’s. That success has been a byproduct of staying level-headed.
“You have to have a high respect for every team, for your opponents, every single time you go into a game,” senior Hallie Slidell said. “One of our other mottos is ‘win or tie every minute,’ so we just make sure we’re giving our all every minute of the game to get the win.”
The Gators last claimed the ISL regular season crown in 2021 but fell short in the tournament. The year after that, the results were flipped. Their mindset this time around: no co-championships.
Helen Yeung had a slow start on the first day of last week’s Maryland state golf championship, as the River Hill senior shot 1-over par through her first three holes. An update from a coach got her on track: “Your sister is beating you.”
“We just like being competitive with each other,” said Helen, the eventual champion. “When I heard that [Michelle] was beating me, I stepped up my game a little bit and put more focus and energy toward my golf game.”
Michelle Yeung, a freshman at River Hill and Helen’s younger sister, is always looking to learn from her sibling, but she also wants to gain an edge over Helen whenever she can.
“There’s always going to be a time where I want to beat [Helen],” she said. “It definitely helps me improve and it makes me practice more so I can one day be better than her.”
Helen and Michelle both finished in the top five among all state championship girls’ participants — Michelle finishing fourth at 2-over par and Helen setting a girls’ tournament record at 10-under par.
The pair picked up golf while living in Thailand. From their first time swinging a driver, the sisters fell in love with the game. River Hill Coach Matt Graves saw during their junior golf days that they were budding stars.
“Helen set the tone very early as a sophomore, winning states,” he said. “I think Michelle saw that at her age going ‘okay, I want to be like my sister.’ ”
Helen is committed to play golf at North Carolina next fall, but Michelle still has three years left at River Hill. She plans to use that time to further improve her game — and eventually beat her sister’s scores.
“I want to break a couple of the records that [Helen] has set,” Michelle said. “And I want to win a state championship.”
It was no surprise the Severna Park girls were victorious in the Anne Arundel County championships on Oct. 21, as the Falcons have established themselves as one of the state’s best teams. But seeing the first six runners cross the finish line all flashing SP on their chests showed a different level of dominance.
Nine of the top 10 finishers were from Severna Park, resulting in an impeccable 15-point score, 95 points better than the runner-up, South River.
Sophomore Kathryn Murphy continued her hot streak, taking home the individual championship with a 20:03 time. A JV runner last year, Murphy has emerged as the team’s top athlete on a squad full of talented upperclassmen.
“Going one through six was crazy,” Murphy said.
The Falcons won the Bull Run Invitational on Sept. 23 but had not shown this type of talent until late. Now, heading into the Nov. 11 state championships, that depth could be the deciding factor.
“It’s kind of like an accordion, where those girls on the bottom are pushing the people in front of them up [and so on],” Coach Josh Alcombright said.
At the beginning of the fall season, Stone Ridge Coach Bob Finney admitted he didn’t know what he had with his group of 18 girls. The Gators had just graduated seven seniors and lost two of their top singles players to injury in the preseason, leaving many unanswered questions regarding the team’s potential within the Independent School League.
Months later, Finney’s team proved it did indeed have what it takes to win. Stone Ridge knocked off Flint Hill in the title bout of the ISL A championships on Thursday in Alexandria, ousting the Huskies, 4-3.
“When we lost [two of our players] in the beginning during practice I was like ‘Gosh, this is not going to be great,’ ” Finney said. “But they just kept getting better and they were tough and it’s a good group.”
The victory was the Gators’ first ISL crown since 2016 and avenged a regular season loss to the Huskies in September.
Finney watched the Gators grow throughout the season and leaned on his team’s youth in pivotal spots in the lineup. Freshman Sofia Singer — one of several freshmen who played key roles in Stone Ridge’s championship run — didn’t drop a match in the third singles spot all season and clinched Thursday’s victory.
“It was great for the girls, I mean they were super excited,” Finney said. “They were really pumped up about it.”