There was a late-afternoon fivesome that wandered up to the first tee area at the wooded Algonkian Regional Park golf course in Sterling on Oct. 5, looking to play a round.

With one regular-season match remaining, the Yorktown Patriots continue to enjoy a strong campaign with just one loss and dominating performances against some opponents.

What’s that popular phrase often given as the reason climbers attempt to scale Mount Everest: “Because it is there.”

Below are standings ending Oct. 8 for teams in the Northern Virginia Senior Softball League for the 2021 fall season.

The Bishop O’Connell Knights (3-3, 0-1) had their three-game winning streak ended Oct. 9 with a 30-0 home loss to the St. Mary’s Ryken Knights in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference opener for each high-school football team.

It was a clean sweep of home victories for three varsity high-school football teams in Arlington under Friday night lights Oct. 8 in Liberty District action.

There are no ties in Virginia high-school football. That means either the Langley Saxons or host Washington-Liberty Generals will conclude the Friday night, Oct. 8, Liberty District showdown with a victory at last this fall.

If there was anything good that came from COVID regarding high-school sports, it was those much shorter halftimes of football games during the condensed and postponed 2020 season.

Mission accomplished: By carding a school-record 36-hole team score, the Yorktown Patriots qualified for the state tournament for the first time since 1995.

The all-Arlington girls volleyball rivalry has gone back-and-forth so far this season between the Wakefield Warriors, Washington-Liberty Generals and Yorktown Patriots.

After years of being elsewhere, a championship football trophy has returned to where it originated – in possession of the Yorktown High School football team.

Washington-Liberty High School senior softball pitcher Emilie Doty will play college ball at Division III Tufts University in Massachusetts..

Below are standings ending Oct. 1 for teams in the Northern Virginia Senior Softball League for the 2021 fall season.

As the crow flies, the Northern Virginia campuses of Bishop O’Connell and Annandale high schools, which opened in the 1950s, are fairly close, each residing inside the Beltway.

After three straight losses to non-conference opponents, the Yorktown Patriots returned to the winners’ bracket Oct. 1 with a Liberty District blowout road victory over the McLean Highlanders.

After being named the Atlantic East Conference Women’s Golfer of the Week, the honors continued to roll in for Marymount University player Hunter Gillis. She also recently was tabbed as the Centennial Conference Golfer of the Week.

Maybe because of significantly less land and overall available space at some local private-school campuses, many of the varsity football fields at those venues are situated quite close to the school buildings.

The initial tournament of what the Yorktown Patriots hope become three postseason events went very much as planned.

As Jake Marshall explained, restarting his professional baseball career this past spring wasn’t initially in the plans and came “absolutely out of nowhere.”

The Boston Marathon, the world’s oldest continuously-run 26.2-mile race, always attracts a large contingent of runners from Arlington.

Through Sept. 23 action, the Bishop O’Connell Knights girls volleyball team had an   11-2 overall record and a 4-1 mark in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference.

n In another Sept. 24 high-school football contest, the Yorktown Patriots (2-3, 1-0) fell to the host Westfield Bulldogs, 13-7, in non-district action. The loss was the third in a row for Yorktown, all against Concorde District teams.

In Sept. 24 private-school afternoon action, the visiting Bishop O’Connell Knights (2-2) won their second straight high-school football game with a 32-6 victory over Annapolis Area Christian School.

The Wakefield Warriors scored all the points they needed in the first quarter, then their defense did the rest.

Below are standings ending Sept. 24 for teams in the Northern Virginia Senior Softball League for the 2021 fall season.

For the fifth straight season, the Wakefield Warriors defeated the Washington-Liberty Generals in an all-Arlington high-school football clash, winning 7-0 this fall on Sept. 24.

The biggest Friday night Sept. 24 high-school football game involving local teams is the all-Arlington showdown between the host and winless Washington-Liberty Generals (0-4, 0-1) and the Wakefield Warriors (1-3) in a 7 p.m. Liberty District clash.

The Yorktown Patriots finished the regular season with a 5-2-1 overall record and a 4-2 Liberty District mark in high-school golf action.

Eliminate the coronavirus, and Cindy Walls likely would be coaching the Bishop O’Connell High School head girls cross country team for one last season this fall.