National District Playoff Preview

It has been an up and coming season for all three Arlington high schools in a wide open National District.  After starting 6-0 in conference play, the Patriots lost four of their final eight games to slide to third place.  However, the Patriots are coming off one of their best performances of the year, a narrow 57-54 loss to the top seed Edison Eagles, nearly avenging the 28-point loss at home earlier in the year. 

They will now gear up to take on the cross-town rival Wakefield Warriors, who have lost six of their last eight games, but are coming off a great win over Washington-Lee.  The Warriors have been inconsistent this year, but have earned some big wins, including a buzzer-beater victory over Edison, and a pair of overtime wins against West Potomac and Osbourn Park.  While they can get up and down with the more athletic teams, the Warriors struggle in in the half court.  For the Warriors to make a run, they will need senior guards Thomas Taylor and Jon Remedios to take care of the basketball, while also finding ways to score.  The Warriors leading scorer Deontae Murphy has disappeared in some games this season, but is capable of putting up big numbers and will most likely need to for Wakefield to advance.

Yorktown has beat Wakefield rather easily in both meetings this season, and as any player knows, it is tough to beat a team three times in the same year, especially when it is a rivalry match.  However, I like the disciplined Yorktown Patriots in this one.  As long as they don’t get caught in the up-tempo style the Warriors will look to establish, they should be able to dominate play in the half court.

The winner of the Warriors vs. Patriots will likely head to Mount Vernon, to take on a team that has been nearly unstoppable since star guard Jesse Konadu has returned from suspension.  Having won seven of their last eight, including a 77-61 win over the Patriots, the defending champs looked poised to get into another National District final.

The Washington-Lee Generals have been the most consistent of the Arlington teams as of late, having won six of their last nine games.  However, they will be hosting one of the scrappiest teams in the region, the Falls Church Jaguars.  Falls Church has lost four of their last five games, but all four losses have come to the top four seeds.  When the Jags came to town mid January, the Generals barely hung on to win 58-56. 

However when the Generals traveled to Fall Church last week, they got up early and never looked back.  The keys to this game for the Generals are to handle the traps and pressure of the undersized Jags, and to control Nizar Alamin.  Averaging 17 points per game, Alamin is one of the Districts most prolific scorers, and capable of taking over the game at any time. 

Despite lacking the talent of the higher seeds, the Jags have shown resiliency all year, and if the Generals can’t establish a lead early, this one could go either way. It very well may come down to which one of these streaky teams is able to catch fire form behind the arc.   Still, I think the Generals will execute a game plan similar to last week’s 69-55 win over the Jags and pull this one out fairly comfortably as well.

The winner of Falls Church vs. Washington-Lee has the unfortunate task of taking on the top seed Edison Eagles.  Although freshman Jonah Sens is undoubtedly the best center behind Edison’s Matt Murphy, the combination of Murphy and Mackall, as well as star guard Jerome Diggs make the Eagles too much to handle.  

Either way, tomorrow night’s matchups at Yorktown and Washington-Lee will be full of excitement and memorable moments.