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“It feels amazing,” sophomore right-hander Noah Gross said. “When you’re at a smaller school, you create these bonds that are just so much closer. … I’ve been here since preschool. When you’re younger growing up, you want to be playing in these games. You want to earn a banner.”
The Wildebeests (12-3) had plenty of cause for confidence heading into the postseason. In March, Gross threw a perfect game. In April, the team won four games by at least 12 runs. In an unorthodox league, though, it was fitting that the path to a title got a bit wacky.
McClellan, who had retired from coaching in 2020, returned before the season after another coach’s hiring fell through. And even with blowouts abound, the championship game pitted the Wildebeests against Field School, which Sandy Spring had beaten with a walk-off hit in April, though not before the Falcons fanned their first 18 batters.
Thursday offered more eccentricities. Three Wildebeests pitchers, who had been consistent all season, combined to issue 17 walks. Still, they mopped up the messes. Behind them, the defense shined. The offense, led by sophomore catcher Jacob Edelman and senior Miles Jones, followed suit. After the final out, Jones slammed his glove on the ground.
“I’ve been playing baseball my whole life,” Jones said. “We all worked so hard. This is what we worked for.”
Yorktown Coach Greg Beer wants his players to play fast, so in practice he tries to make every activity involve competition and runs 12-second drills to keep the players moving.
But once the Patriots had built a lead in their 8-1 blowout of defending Class 6 champion Madison on March 30, the team that eliminated them in last year’s semifinals, senior midfielder Jack Martinez and some of the offensive players told their teammates to avoid rushing possessions, drag out the clock and only shoot if it’s a good shot.
Yorktown (14-1) hasn’t lost since its season opener against The Heights. The Patriots knocked off Herndon on Friday in the Liberty District semifinals for their 12th win by at least five goals. Yorktown faces McLean for the district title Tuesday; it beat the Highlanders, 10-6, on April 28.
“We had a gauntlet before spring break; we were very front-loaded,” Beer said. “It showed a lot about who the kids were. … The Madison game showed their hunger.”
Junior attackman Hudson Greene, who leads Yorktown’s offense with 39 goals, is one of seven players who played on the Patriots’ 2021 Class 6 championship team. In addition to an attack that averages 13.3 goals per game, senior midfielder Miles Fang and junior goalie Hayden Whittington lead the Patriots’ defensive unit.
Hayfield has won four district titles in program history, the most recent coming 20 years ago. As postseason play begins this week, the Hawks are looking to add to that tally after an impressive regular season in which they finished 9-1-3.
“They walk through the gym, and every once in a while I catch them glancing up at that banner,” Coach Daniel Drickey said. “So we’ll take this one thing at a time. Everybody wants to go out on a high.”
That step-by-step approach has been at the center of everything the team has done this spring. Drickey knew he had a solid group of seniors coming into this season, but has been pleasantly surprised by the play of underclassmen. That has created a strong balance of youth and experience within the Hawks’ starting lineup. Together, the group has tried to keep a mantra of checking one box at a time and keeping a level head.
“Our message is always going to be about the next game,” Drickey said. “We want to go out, check the box and then see who’s next.”
That means not getting too excited, sure, but it also means finding the ability to bounce back from adversity.
“This group doesn’t get shook too much,” Drickey said. “We go a goal down and they find some motivation. In years past, we might give up a goal and bicker for 15 minutes and find ourselves down two or three. This group gets a chip on their shoulder for giving it up in the first place.”
The Potomac School Panthers came away disappointed from Saturday’s Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference championship. After a grueling series of matches and multiple tiebreakers, they lost, 4-3, against Sidwell Friends.
But mixed with that frustration, there was encouragement. Coming in as the underdogs with little tournament experience compared with the opposing lineup, the Panthers demonstrated a scrappy attitude they had built over the course of the season.
For second doubles player Michael Fleming, his win with partner Ben Schirmeier signaled skyrocketing progress in his own play. A week earlier, they barely escaped with a win against the Sidwell duo at one of their last regular season matches. But at the MAC finals, they handed their team a definitive doubles win early in the contest.
“We didn’t really feel like we played all that well [in the regular season match],” Fleming said.
“But I was like, ‘We can take them again.’ So then we ended up winning [in the finals], 6-2, 6-1. It was really satisfying, considering last year the exact same doubles team beat us pretty easily.”
The Panthers came a long way since being shut out at last year’s MAC tournament. They’ll need to rally themselves quickly as they head into the Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association tournament, where they will face strong competition from Richmond-area teams.
“Obviously, right after the match, it was a tough moment for us,” senior No. 3 singles player Alex Zhou said. “But all of us are really proud of our level … and heading into the state championship hopefully we can be able to show the other teams the attitude and the skills that we have and not spend too much time on this loss.”
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