By nearly upsetting the host team, the West Springfield Spartans went from a much-welcomed 11th-hour replacement savior of sorts to a spoiler at the George Long Holiday boys basketball tournament at Wakefield High School.
The Spartans eventually lost to the host Wakefield Warriors, 55-53, in a seesaw opening-round Dec. 26 game of the eight-team, three-day high-school tourney.
As he continues head-coaching duties of a boys varsity high-school basketball team in Southern Maryland, Brad Leydig credits two people for influencing his career path.
Those impressions were made when Leydig was a student/athlete at Madison High School in Vienna, learning from the Warhawks’ late head football coach Lenny Schultz and current head boys hoops coach Kevin Roller.
With a dozen wrestlers finishing among the top four in their weight classes, including three champions, the Justice Wolves won the recent eight-team Saxon Invitational high-school match.
Justice finished with 160.5 points, with the Herndon Hornets second with 131 at Langley High School.
On a turnaround 12-foot jump shot in the middle of the lane, Anya Rahman scored her 1,000th career point for the Langley Saxons girls basketball team in a recent high-school game.
The basket came with 2:39 left in the second quarter against the Bishop O’Connell Knights on Langley’s home court, giving the Saxons a 20-9 lead.
The Madison Warhawks finished ranked second, seventh and ninth in three different final statewide high-school football polls for the 2024 season as compiled by MaxPreps.com.
In the public-school Class 6 (schools with the highest enrollment) poll, the Concorde District and 6D North Region champion Warhawks (14-1) were ranked second.
Players from multiple Fairfax County football teams, including the region-champion Lake Braddock Bruins and Madison Warhawks, recently were honored as Virginia High School League Class 6 first- or second-team all-state selections.
From Madison, senior slotback Dominic Knicely earned the biggest award as the Offensive Player of the Year.
Dominic Knicely has received the highest honor for his performance on the football field for the Madison Warhawks during the fall season.
The senior slot back and kick returner has been named the Virginia High School League Class 6 state Offensive Player of the Year.
The Madison Warhawks and Marshall Statesmen had opposite results in their final boys basketball games prior to participating in holiday tournaments later this week.
Madison (6-2) routed visiting Independence, 62-39, in a non-district high-school game for its fifth-straight win on Dec. 20, while host Marshall (6-3, 1-1) lost to the Yorktown Patriots (7-1), 59-57, in a seesaw Liberty District contest on the same night.
With an out-of-town holiday tournament next on the schedule, the Flint Hill Huskies warmed up by winning a key local boys basketball game.
In that Dec. 19 high-school contest, visiting Flint Hill (4-3, 2-0) defeated its top neighborhood and Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference rival Potomac School Panthers, 81-64.
Boys volleyball players from three different district-championship squads in Fairfax County recently were chosen to Virginia High School League Class 6 all-state teams.
From the Liberty District and region-champion McLean Highlanders team, senior Evan Li made the first team and senior Luke Cowan was selected to the second.
