The Washington Post - USA (2021-12-25)

teams faced off in Florida, and the other

four were here, tucked away in the moun-

tains of Western Maryland.

The night’s host was Bishop Walsh, a

small K-12 Catholic school with a proud

and ambitious basketball program. The

Spartans often travel south to take on

some of the better teams in the D.C. area,

and they leave with mixed results. In

recent years, they have developed a repu-

tation as a strong program but not a

regional juggernaut like many of the

other members of this new conference.

This winter, the Spartans returned just

three players from a senior-heavy team

and restocked their roster with transfers

SEE NIBC ON D5

One observer, standing near the doorway

of the gym as he waited to find a seat,

chuckled in near disbelief at the spectacle.

“This isn’t like normal high school

ball,” he said. “This is a whole different

thing.”

It was the opening day of the National

Interscholastic Basketball Conference, a

new league designed to be the best in the

nation. Featuring eight teams from seven

states, the ambitious venture is the glitzy

and logical next step for a sport that has

long been headed in this direction.

Throughout the winter, NIBC teams

will meet up in one city or another for a

weekend of games — a hoops roadshow.

This first weekend featured a split: Four

BY MICHAEL ERRIGO

cumberland, md. — The cheerleaders

who populated the baseline provided one

of the evening’s few reminders that this

was, in fact, a high school basketball

game. There to represent the one school

located less than 400 miles away, they

occupied the area to the left and right of

an ESPN cameraman stationed under the

basket.

The level of play at Allegany College of

Maryland on this Thursday night in early

December suggested this was something

well beyond high school hoops. The court

looked too small for these boys, who were

flying around with such speed and power.

KLMNO

SPORTS

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 25 , 2021. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/SPORTS M2 D

HOCKEY

The NHL pushes back its return date, meaning the

Capitals no longer will resume play Monday. D2

PRO FOOTBALL

Colts RB Jonathan Taylor has exceptional stats, but the

league’s most valuable players are still QBs. D3

PRO FOOTBALL

Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield is

activated ahead of his team’s game at Green Bay. D4

BY BEN GOLLIVER

The NBA constructed its
Christmas Day schedule with
care, laying out five games that
featured juicy superstar show-
downs and intriguing playoff re-
matches. Unfortunately, the coro-
navirus pandemic has a way of
altering holiday plans.
Saturday’s quintuple-header
still should include high-level bas-
ketball, but many of the top story
lines are in tatters because of a
spike in positive tests caused by
the omicron variant. Los Angeles
Lakers forward LeBron James and
Brooklyn Nets forward Kevin Du-
rant were supposed to square off
for the first time in three years in a
battle of big-market title hopefuls,
but both teams have battled signif-
icant outbreaks this week, and
Durant, the NBA’s scoring leader,

will miss out because of the NBA’s

health and safety protocols.

Meanwhile, Trae Young won’t

get to make his first return trip to

Madison Square Garden since he

led the Atlanta Hawks past the

New York Knicks in an intense

first-round playoff series this past

spring. The 23-year-old guard

and Spike Lee antagonist, who

ranks second in scoring

leaguewide, entered the protocols

this week, robbing the Christmas

Day opener of its headliner. Sat-

urday’s nightcap has been simi-

larly compromised: Luka Doncic,

who was working toward a return

from an ankle injury, entered the

protocols this week and will be

sidelined when the Dallas Maver-

icks face the Utah Jazz.

So who’s left to save Christmas?

James, Stephen Curry, Chris Paul,

SEE NBA ON D3

NBA’s Christmas bu≠et

comes with less stu∞ng BY DES BIELER

The speed that hydrofoils add

to boats transformed the world of

competitive sailing, but it has

nothing on the dizzying rate of CJ

Perez’s ascent in the sport.

After starting to sail at 13, the

Honolulu native turned 18 just in

time to take her place aboard a

state-of-the-art catamaran in Oc-

tober and compete in the world’s

top sailing league.

Perez’s participation with the

U.S. team at an event in Cadiz,

Spain, made her the first Ameri-

can woman and the youngest per-

son ever to race in SailGP. Just as

significant for someone keen to

help bring more diversity to top-

level sailing, Perez is the nascent

circuit’s first Latina athlete. Her

rise is intertwined with “foiling,” a

technological revolution in sail-

ing that could lure a new field of

participants at a time when the

SEE SAILING ON D2

Changing the face and pace of sailing

BOB MARTIN FOR SAILGP

CJ Perez, 18, became the first American woman, the first Latina

and the youngest person to race in global sailing league SailGP.

Into the unknown

In the first national high school league, Maryland’s Bishop Walsh takes on a brave new world

KATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POST

BY NICKI JHABVALA

Washington Football Team

safety Deshazor Everett was the

driver in a crash that killed a

female passenger in Loudoun

County on Thursday night, ac-

cording to the Loudoun County

Sheriff ’s Office.

Everett was driving a 2010 Nis-

san GT-R that was traveling north

on Gum Spring Road around

9:15 p.m. when his car veered to

the right and hit several trees

before rolling over, according to

the Sheriff ’s Office news release.

The passenger of the car, Mont-

gomery County native Olivia S.

Peters, was taken to StoneSprings

Hospital Center, where she died

of her injuries. She was 29.

Everett suffered serious but

not life-threatening injuries and

was taken to Reston Hospital

Center, according to the sheriff ’s

office.

An investigation of the crash is

ongoing.

In a statement released Friday

morning, the team said it alerted

the league office and is working

with local officials to get more

information. According to a per-

son with knowledge of the situa-

tion, the team has been in contact

with Everett, who is still being

treated at the hospital.

“We’ve been made aware of an

automobile accident last night

SEE EVERETT ON D4

WFT safety

Everett

involved in

fatal crash

Loudoun authorities say

he was the driver when

woman, 29, was killed

Bishop Walsh’s Daniel Dormu attacked the basket against Kebba Njie from Indiana’s La Lumiere on Dec. 2 in Cumberland, Md.

BY LIZ CLARKE

The 2021-22 NCAA Postseason

Bowl Handbook features 23 pag-

es of policies and procedures for

bowl game operators, covering

everything from how many free

tickets each football player may

receive (no more than six) to the

permissible spots on the field for

sponsors’ logos (three), complete

with illustrations.

The subsection on “medical

procedures” mandates that a phy-

sician and certified athletic train-

er(s) be onsite for all practices

and game day and, among other

things, that team benches be

provided drinking cups, a water

cooler, ice chests and water bot-

tles for each practice and game.

But there is no mention of the

coronavirus, the contagion that

has roiled the country and most

of the world for nearly two years

and on Thursday forced the can-

cellation of the Hawaii Bowl after

an outbreak on the Hawaii War-

riors’ roster. That followed

Wednesday’s announcement that

Texas A&M was withdrawing

from the Dec. 31 Gator Bowl,

unable to field a team given its

own coronavirus spread and

plague of injuries. Rutgers, with a

5-7 record, will replace Texas

A&M.

When it comes to covid proto-

cols for this season’s bowl games

SEE BOWLS ON D5

Bowls face

virus surge

with ad hoc

protocols

NCAA, in symbolic role,

defers to conferences,

local authorities

Washington at Cowboys

Tomorrow, 8:20 p.m., NBC

Roster moves: Key players return,

but Collins lands on IR. D4