They took more shots, controlled possession for much of the time and hosted the match.
But as happens in soccer sometimes, the Yorktown Patriots still didn’t win, as the defending champions suffered a season-ending 2-1 loss to the Madison Warhawks in a semifinal game of the 6D North Region girls tournament on May 25.
The Patriots finished the season with a 15-2-1 record and will not get the chance to defend their Virginia High School League Class 6 state championship. The region tournament’s top two finishers advance to states.
The region-semifinal loss snapped Yorktown’s seven-game winning streak and 15-match unbeaten string. In addition, the Patriots had won 11-straight postseason games.
In the region final, Yorktown controlled the ball in Madison’s end of the field for much of the first half. The Warhawks, though, took a 1-0 lead on a breakaway, fastbreak goal when Kyra Hartogs scored 12 minutes into the game.
Yorktown tied the score at 1 with 24:29 left in the second half when junior forward Ellington Emery scored on a tough-angle shot that curved high into the net and over the leaping goalie’s arm. The shot was taken from the far right corner, basically where corner kicks begin.
About seven minutes later, Madison’s Katherine Murray netted the game-winner on a rebounded shot after a volley in front of the Yorktown goal.
Yorktown players Moira Flynn, Aminata Davis and others pressured the Madison goal the rest of the way, but couldn’t produce another score, despite having the ball inside the Madison goal box multiple times.
Back in the 2019 campaign, Madison’s season ended with a 6-1 region-tournament semifinal loss at Yorktown, which went on to win region and state titles that spring.
Overall, Yorktown was 1-1 in this season’s region tourney, blanking the South Lakes Seahawks, 1-0, in a first-round match in Arlington on a second-half goal by Flynn. She is one of the team’s top goal scorers, the Liberty District Player of the Year and an all-region first-team selection, as well.
The shutout was Yorktown’s ninth.
• In other region-tournament girls action, the host Washington-Liberty Generals lost to the Centreville Wildcats, 2-1, in the first round. The Generals finished 7-5-4.
• In the boys region tournament, the Wakefield Warriors fell to the host Madison Warhawks, 3-0, in the first round, ending their season with a 6-8-1 overall record. Wakefield was the only Arlington boys team that advanced to the region tournament.
NOTE: The Yorktown girls team has been one of the state’s most successful programs in recent years. The Patriots have won two region championships in program history, last year and in 2019, have won three state crowns, in 2017, 2019 and last spring, while having few losses each season during that stretch.
