There will be a lot on the line on Saturday afternoon, Sept. 21, at 1 p.m. when the Washington-Liberty Generals host the Yorktown Patriots in an all-Arlington showdown of 3-0 high-school football teams.
The Liberty District contest will be the first league outing of the season for the defending-champion Generals. Yorktown already is 1-0 in the district, having defeated Arlington’s Wakefield Warriors last weekend.
If Yorktown defeats W-L, the Patriots will be this season’s unofficial Arlington County champions and take over sole possession of first place in the district. The Generals earned that county-champ honor last season with wins over Yorktown and Wakefield. Washington-Liberty and Wakefield meet later this season.
A Yorktown victory on Sept. 21, also will be the 300th in the 45-year head football coaching career of longtime Patriots coach Bruce Hanson. Hanson has coached Yorktown since the 1985 season (39 years), winning 269 games as the team’s head coach. His other 30 victories came when he coached Wakefield from 1974 to 1979.
The three wins by each team, all by comfortable or lopsided margins, this season have come against opponents with a combined 2-15 record. Yorktown is averaging 36.7 points per game and Washington-Liberty 45.3 with a shutout.
The Generals have allowed just 16 points and Yorktown significantly more, 56.
Both Hanson and W-L head coach Josh Shapiro agree their teams will be significantly tested for the first time this season in the Sept. 21 clash.
“W-L is good. This game is 50-50 really,” Hanson said. “It’s a district and a rivalry game that we need to win. It would be pretty cool to get 300 wins, but we haven’t mentioned that If that happens, we don’t need a celebration. I’m more concerned with getting on with our season.”
Hanson also is concerned because his team’s starting runningback and leading rusher, Coby Casalengo, will miss the game, and maybe the rest of the season, with a leg injury.
Shapiro noted that Yorktown will be extra motivated to get Hanson his 300th win and because the Generals defeated the Patriots last season, taking over Yorktown’s bragging rights as county champs.
“It’s two good football teams from the same county, Bruce can win his 300th game, that adds a layer to it all, so there is a lot on the line,” said Shapiro, who has been the head coach longer than any other in W-L’s long history and has 79 career wins in that position, also a program best. “All of the ingredients are there for a good game to watch.”
NOTE: There are only seven coaches listed with 300 wins in the VHSL’s football record-book section for that category. Former Hampton Crabbers coach Mike Smith has the most with 506 over 50 years. Former Stone Bridge of Ashburn head coach Mickey Thompson (336 career wins) is the only VHSL coach in the Northern Virginia area with more wins than Hanson.
