With students heading home for the holidays, the Cardinals look to a variety of tournament opportunities as they take a break from the conference schedules. For some squads it is a familiar routine, for other teams an opportunity for new venues and unknown opponents.
As is always the case in this season, winter weather looms over all the scheduled events. Watch for FCPS annoucements concerning cancellations and call the Cardinal Athletic hotline at (703) 212-5141 for the latest information on schedules and events involving Ireton athletics. You can also sign up for text message and email updates to your favorite sports schedules online at www.bishopireton.org/athletics on the Cardinal Sports News page under “upcoming events”. Host schools make weather-related decisions. The Ireton wrestling will go unless Fairfax County cancels activities prior to the 7:30am weigh-ins. “We want to do the right thing,” said Ireton athletic director, Bill Simmons. “We will stay in touch with all the schools. If we need to modify the format in order to get teams on the road early we will look at that. If the roads are a problem before we even get started, we will do the right thing in that case as well. We certainly don’t want Benedictine to drive up from Richmond, however, then find out that we aren’t going to wrestle and put them right back on a dangerous highway. I think the organizers of all the events; at Bullis, Gonzaga, Queen Anne’s will do the same thing, use good judgment and error on the side of being safe.”
The Bishop Ireton Holiday Wrestling Invitational will be held for the 18th consecutive year in Godley Gymnasium. Coach Don Dight will host an 8-team field, including St Stephens, PVI, DeMatha, Benedictine of Richmond, and the Maryland School for the Deaf. Cardinals have wrestled well in the early dual meet schedule and look for strong performances from senior Eliot Mondragon, Kevin Galloway, and Jacob Manley as well as sophomore Andrew Lutterloh. In a very competitive field with the Stags, PVI Panthers, and St Stephens Saints as well as the all-boys Benedictine, organizers look for an exciting day of competitive wrestling, which kicks off at 9am.
The swimmers head to Manassas for a re-scheduled swim meet including host Seton School, John Paul the Great, Collegiate School of Richmond, PVI, The Heights, and Flint Hill. The Cardinals have seen a number of state meet-qualifying times so far in this early part of the swim season and look for strong competition from the teams as well as more qualifying times. Swimming begins at 2pm at the Freedom Center in Manassas. Angus MacDonald and Alina Hall were tapped as swimmers to watch by the Washington Post and MacDonald has logged a sub :21 second 50-yard freestyle with his club team to serve notice the School record may be in danger.
Ireton’s hockey team has logged three wins to open the season with North Stafford High School and Forest Park on the road Thursday and Friday. After Christmas, they host the 5th annual Alumni game at Mt Vernon Rec Center on Monday then head into their biggest challenge of the season when they play in the Gonzaga Purple Puck tournament after a number of years away from the area’s biggest Christmas hockey tourney at the Ft Dupont Ice Rink in southeast DC. Reid Yager and Tom Cyrnak lead the Cardinals on offense while Robert Chastian has taken care of the goal for Ireton.
Following a Tuesday evening road game with WCAC rival, Good Counsel, Coach Neil Berkman leads the boys basketball team to the Bullis Holiday tournament beginning Friday night with a 6:30pm tipoff versus Glenelg Country School, one of the pretournament favorites in the tournament. “They have a very good ball club,” commented Berkman, “we drew as good a team as is in the tournament in the opening round. But I think the road to the championship will be through them so we might as play them first.” The Cardinals (3-3) play again at 6pm Saturday, win or lose, in the second round of the tournament. Juniors Patrick Hanafin and Antonio Rouse lead the redbirds early in the campaign.
Coach Mike Hutton’s girls roundballers (4-3) look to rebound from a pair of lopsided loses to WCAC preseason favorites, Elizabeth Seton and Holy Cross, during the break. The gals travel to Archbishop Carroll on Friday night, to Flint Hill on Saturday, then host another conference power in Good Counsel, Tuesday before heading to the Queen Anne’s tournament in Queen Anne County Maryland on the 28th. Ireton opened the season 4-1 and captured the St Stephens St Agnes Tipoff Tournament before dropping their last two WCAC encounters. Senior Sarah Baldwin, the St Stephens tourney MVP leads the run-and-gun Cardinals offense that utilizes the entire bench.
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