A contest-within-the-contest played out Monday (Jan. 13) when the Wakefield Warriors hosted the Marshall Statesmen in Liberty District boys basketball action.
The game feature a battle-of-the-big men showdown between 6-foot-6 senior centers Kooper Odar of Wakefield and Anderson Krisko of Marshall.
The initial girls and boys Division I private-school state basketball rankings of the 2024-25 high-school season includes a number of teams from Northern Virginia.
In the girls poll, the Potomac School Panthers of McLean are ranked fifth. The Panthers finished second in the Division I state tournament last season, losing to St. Paul VI Catholic in the title game.
A standout high-school lacrosse player, Catherine Letendre also has proved her athletic talents on the basketball court.
The Potomac School Panthers senior scored her 1,000th career point in a recent game for the girls private high-school team. She is the fourth player in program history to reach that milestone.
As occurs frequently when they meet, the Marshall Statesmen and Wakefield Warriors played another of those low-scoring, physical boys basketball games that more closely resembled a hard-checking NHL playoff match.
Host Wakefield won the Jan. 13 Liberty District seesaw high-school contest, 35-34, when Marshall’s Osteen Fraser missed a baseline jump shot at the buzzer.
Last season, the top seed Centreville Wildcats suffered a disappointing loss in the semifinals of the Concorde District basketball tournament.
The girls high-school team continues to bounce back strong since that setback.
The Langley Saxons (9-3) improved to 3-0 in the Liberty District with a difficult road victory over the Yorktown Patriots in a Jan. 10 girls basketball game.
Langley led throughout the high-school game, but couldn’t pull away from Yorktown. The Saxons led 7-2 after the first quarter and 18-14 at halftime.
Runners for the Marshall Statesmen were successful at two different track-and-field meets this past weekend, helping the girls and boys teams win titles at one of the competitions.
Marshall won championships at the high-school meet among Fairfax County teams at Thomas Jefferson Community Center in Arlington. The girls won with 86 points and the boys with 82.
She isn’t the prolific scorer like in high school, but Elizabeth Dufrane is still a significant point producer in women’s college basketball.
The McLean High School graduate is a starting senior guard for the Division III Roger Williams University team in Rhode Island. Through 13 games this season, Dufrane is the Hawks’ second-leading scorer, averaging 11 points per game and 4.4 rebounds.
It was the girls in a blowout and the boys by a whisker as the host Centreville Wildcats swept a varsity basketball doubleheader against a Concorde District rival Friday night (Jan. 10).
The Centreville girls (10-2) won 62-31 and the boys (7-6) rallied for a 56-55 victory over Madison Warhawks teams. The games were the district openers of the season for all four squads.
In their busy early-season schedule, the Potomac School Panthers have played basketball opponents from all over at various locales through 14 games.
The Panthers (8-6) won three girls high-school games in Kissimmee, Fla,. to come out on top in the recent KSA Events Holiday Tournament. The McLean private-school team also has played two times in Maryland, once in D.C. and, in Virginia, has competed in Ashburn, Richmond and Virginia Beach.
