It’s all over for the private schools. Another year is in the books and the spring season saw an awful lot of teams from Central Virginia in the various VISAA tournaments, but only the Tandem Friends girls soccer team, Covenant’s boys tennis team and St. Anne’s-Belfield girls lacrosse squad ended the year with a win.
The Badgers earned the program’s first state title a year after a making a serious run but coming up short against Covenant – the defending champions who wound up making it two straight. After dropping a 1-0 contest to Eastern Mennonite in late April, the Badgers went unbeaten in their final nine contests and outscored their last four opponents 12-2. In the three VISAA Divison 2 tournament games it won, Tandem never allowed more than one goal while pouring in eight.
In the world of girls lacrosse, longtime STAB coach Mary Blake brought home her second straight state championship with a 20-5 drubbing of Highland in the VISAA Division 2 championship. It wasn’t so long ago that the Saints postseason ended with the LIS tournament. In 2006 a state tournament platform was finally launched, and with a strong core of players like Addi Bolin, Corinna Coffin and Kathleen Battle among countless other offensive threats, there was no shortage of scoring.
STAB averaged a staggering 18.3 goals per contest in the state tournament and the average margin of victory was a comfortable 14.3 goals. Of course, the icing on the cake for the Saints is that many players, including Bolin will be back next season to try and make it a 3-peat.
Local baseball comes just a bit short
For Covenant baseball, simply making the VISAA Division 2 bracket was a source of pride. The Eagles came into the tourney simply looking to enjoy the ride, but in the process, they wound up runner-up. In fact, after three and a half innings of play, it was looking like Doug Smethurst’s team full of juniors were going to pull it off.
It didn’t happen for Covenant, but if the status quo of players remain – eight of the Eagles nine starters were in 11th grade or lower – this team should be in great position to make another run. With bats like Sean Rutherford and Sam Patterson, the Eagles had no trouble putting runs on the board, but Smethurst credited his starting pitching for the run this year as he noted that he “wasn’t sure how good it was going to be before the year began.”
Both Rutherford and Lee Coppock, each in their junior seasons, developed into reliable starters for the Eagles this season, going deep into games and giving the Covenant bats a good fighting chance to determine the outcome while also keep the Eagles bullpen from having to work too hard.
The number one seed in the Division 1 tournament, St. Anne’s-Belfield looked poised to pick up the programs fifth state championship, but in the semifinals they fell in a close battle to Benedictine. It’s probably of little solace that Cadets, who were seeded fifth, went on to win the title by beating St. Christopher, but much like the Covenant, the pieces are still in place for the Saints to come back and make some noise in 2011.
While ace Quinn Saunders graduates, hard throwing David Spinosa will return and so too will the heart of the Saints’ order with Kevin White and Brian Yeagle coming back for their senior years.
The end of 2010 might have been hard on the local private baseball squads this year, but the door is certainly open for redemption.
