Moments before warmups ahead of a match against Sherwood last week, Annie Zhao, the captain of the Poolesville girls’ tennis team, took the time to gaze up at the solar eclipse. It was a shared moment of awe ahead of a tough match against a bigger school, and the hour-long delay as both teams waited for the darkness to pass gave the players extra time to focus.
But for Zhao, a junior who plays No. 1 singles, it wasn’t the first time she sought to use nature to her advantage. Rather than keep up extended rallies that rely on consistency and conditioning, Zhao prefers to find opportunities to make her opponent uncomfortable. Often, that means taking into account the specifics of the weather or the court.
“You can adjust your shots so that the wind pushes the ball deeper and makes it much more difficult for your opponent to get them,” she said. “Or if the sun is in my opponent’s eyes, I just pop the ball up and hit it high and they have to look at the sun and they usually miss.”
Zhao’s find-every-advantage strategy worked against Sherwood: She prevailed in her match as the Falcons notched a 6-1 team win. As a Class 2A squad in Montgomery County, Poolesville usually takes on larger schools, such as 4A teams Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Blake and Walter Johnson. Zhao said tough competition will get her team in shape as it prepares to defend its 2A title.
“Going up against these bigger schools really allows us as a team to kind of open our eyes and say, ‘Wow, there’s bigger fish out there … and we’re still doing really well against them,’ ” Zhao said.
— Aaron Credeur
Madison went unbeaten in its first 10 games of 2023, but its first loss of 2024 came much earlier.
After a season-opening win over Robinson, the Warhawks fell to Marshall, 3-1. The early defeat provided a much-needed inflection point: Entering Monday, the Warhawks haven’t lost since, rattling off five straight wins against solid opposition.
“That loss to Marshall — we realized that’s what we don’t want. That kind of also helped us go back and look at what we could have done differently,” said first-year coach Jim Mensah, who previously led the junior varsity. “Since that game, we’ve been getting better. I think we feel prepared for whatever opponent comes to us.”
The Warhawks are led by captains Keira McCloskey, Erinn Lockard and Kyra Hartogs. Freshman forward Daphne Van Der Weide scored both goals in Madison’s 2-1 victory over previously undefeated Washington-Liberty on Friday.
Van Der Weide’s late winner embodied the Warhawks’ new aggressive philosophy.
“We’re trying to go for the win every game. … Especially with regional play, a draw doesn’t really do us any good. It doesn’t help us learn anything. We’re just trying to use regional play to figure out what works best for us,” Mensah said. “We could have sat back and [gotten a draw], but that’s not part of the new DNA we’re trying to build.”
— Nicky Wolcott
Nearly two years after being let go by Severna Park, where she won two state titles in seven seasons, Kaitlyn Fuller is still coaching — and winning. Now with Chesapeake, Fuller has led the Cougars to a 6-1 start in her second season.
“I probably would have never left Severna Park,” she said. “To get fired and then to be forced to kind of look somewhere else … it had to be that way so I could get to Chesapeake and be there with those girls that really want me. I want to be there with them.”
Fuller’s first season went well: Chesapeake won 11 games and advanced to the region final, losing to her former team. Fuller spent much of the year laying the foundation for her new program, drilling basic skills and focusing on team play. This year, the Cougars have continued building.
They have just five active seniors, with one player out for the year with two torn knee ligaments. Leading the way is midfielder Kelsie Payne. She has 17 goals, 32 draw controls and 15 groundballs — all team highs. Payne had the game-winner in an 11-10 overtime victory over Annapolis on April 5.
“Those girls, they just were jumping up and down all over each other. … Very exciting, very tense — which I’m not a fan of,” Fuller said of the win. “I’d rather it not be that close, but to have it go that way for us, it was fun.”
— Varun Shankar
Lightridge Coach Jimmy Thomas knew his team would be much improved from last year’s group, which won just six games. The Lightning has a host of freshmen and sophomores who excelled at the middle school level and had the potential to make an instant impact.
Ten games in, the young Lightning has exceeded Thomas’s expectations. Lightridge entered Monday 10-0, having given up just seven runs.
“I couldn’t be happier with where we are and how we started,” Thomas said.
Freshman Peyton Robinson has excelled in the circle, boasting an 8-0 record and a 0.67 ERA with 64 strikeouts against just six walks. Alongside senior Riley Hwang, a Rutgers signee, Robinson has helped the program reach new heights.
Thomas knows his team still has a long way to go to be a contender in Virginia’s Class 5. The Lightning must prove itself against region opponents Briar Woods and Riverside; both have a wealth of experience and championship aspirations.
“The next couple of weeks will really show what kind of a team we are,” Thomas said.
The Bethesda-Chevy Chase girls often hear Coach Brian Comey call out directions when they hit the Potomac River for practice. “Don’t cut the corner of the stroke!” he often says, a reminder for his rowers to keep the blades of their oars submerged to avoid spraying water into the air and slowing the boat.
Comey’s advice is technical but doubles as a team motto. B-CC has goals of breaking team records and placing high in May regattas, and the Barons are trying not to cut any corners in preparation.
“We’ve had almost perfect attendance all the way through from August until now,” Comey said.
The first several weeks of the season were frustrating for most teams. Poor weather took B-CC off the water and led to several canceled regattas, forcing the Barons into an atypical training routine. Still, senior Eliza Boniface said the team is focused on giving its all at every indoor workout.
“Rowing is really a unique sport,” she said. “It’s hard to do unless you really want it — and especially when we’re having these days where we can’t row because of the weather, it’s really hard. But everybody wants it, and they want to put in the work so that we can get the results that we want.”
— Noah Ferguson
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