The winter season is already in full swing and all nine fall varsity sports teams have concluded their seasons. Teams like volleyball, cross country and golf made deep playoff runs while others had early exits this postseason.

Both the girls’ and boys’ cross country teams had successful seasons at both the state and county levels. Both were able to finish top 10 in the county championships, but it was the girls’ team who finished sixth in at the 4A MPSSAA State Championships and had three athletes earn individual medals.  Junior Spencer Becker said, “Although we had a pretty good season this year I think that we will do even better next year and we will make a deep run at states. I think that we will look back at this season as added motivation to succeed.” 

The only other individual sport this fall was the coed golf team, which also made it all the way to the State Championship. The roster was led by seniors Rachel Cheung and Jakob Esterowitz and included juniors Tyler Cosgrove and Colin Grange as well as sophomore Rita Liu. The team traveled to the University of Maryland golf course and placed 13th out of the 20 teams participating. The golf team had a strong individual showing with senior Rachel Cheung coming in 25th in the state and sophomore Rita Liu coming in second in the state.

Another team that had a great season was the girls’ volleyball team. The team went 14-0 in the regular season to secure the second seed in the state playoff bracket. They would go on to win the Regional and County Championships before being edged out in the State Semifinals. The team is going to be challenged with filling in for their impactful seniors next year including Iris Guo, Samantha Bolze, Michelle Yu, Nadya Meyerovich, Cansu Moral and Giselle Kleinbussink, who all played vital roles in the state semifinal run.

The football team also relied heavily on their seniors. The team went 2-7 in the regular season, which was an improvement from years prior and helped the team to a first round matchup against Magruder. The team battled hard through the adversity and Magruder only led by 2-0 at halftime in a defensive game, before pulling away and winning 16-0.

The field hockey team was led by 13 seniors, which was the highest percentage of seniors for any sport, and by sophomore Naomi Esterowitz who led the team in goals. It was the first regular season with new Coach Casey Fletcher where they held an 8-6 record before losing to Churchill in the regional finals.

The boys’ soccer team had a regular season record of 4-6-2 and after a slow 1-5-2 regular season record, the team rebounded to win three of their last four games to close out the regular season and head to the playoffs. In the playoffs the team would lose 2-0 in the regional quarterfinal to Whitman, but are hungry for success next year. Senior Miles Wiley said, “It was a good season with a good bunch of guys. Too bad the cookie fell into the milk at the end.”

The girls’ soccer team had a successful season, going 10-1-1 in the regular season and winning the County Championship. The team had 12 seniors on the roster, including goalie and Rider University commit Adalyn Gully. Ultimately the team was just barely edged out by Whitman in the regional final 1-0.

This year the cheer team cheered on the sidelines of all the varsity sports instead of just the football team like in years past. The team also held clinics in August to prepare them for the season. They were led by new Head Coach Evva Starr as well as senior captains Lizzy Jack, Jamie Morris, Nicole Wasserman and Yael Rosen.

The poms team had an eventful season this year, performing different dance routines at football games and at pep rallies. Their competition season begins after winter break.