WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 D5
FROM STAFF REPORTSOver the past few weeks, the
ice hockey community has come
together to mourn one of its own,
placing sticks outside front doors
and starting games with a mo-
ment of silence to honor the life
of Connecticut high school hock-
ey player Teddy Balkind.
Balkind, a sophomore at St.
Luke’s School in New Canaan,
Conn., died after an opposing
player’s skate blade cut his neck
in a collision during a junior
varsity game Jan. 6. Though such
fatal incidents are rare, Balkind’s
death reignited calls for neck
protection to be a mandatory
piece of equipment among youth
hockey players.
In just over a week, more than
85,000 people have signed an
online petition started by Bal-
kind’s close friend, Sam Brande,
pushing USA Hockey to make
neck guards mandatory at all
levels of play. The governing bod-
ies of Canada and Sweden man-
date the use of neck guards
among amateur players; USA
Hockey, meanwhile, recom-
mends the use but does not man-
date them — instead leaving it up
to the discretion of hockey associ-
ations in each region.
The governing body of all ama-
teur hockey within D.C., Mary-
land and Virginia is the Potomac
Valley Amateur Hockey Associa-
tion (PVAHA). Its rules and regu-
lations handbook — last updated
Aug. 9, 2021 — makes no mention
of neck guards. Most high school
hockey players in the area opt not
to wear a neck guard, which is
described as uncomfortable and
cumbersome.
“I can tell you personally that
nobody would wear them unless
their parents made them,” said
Jason Olden, a former U.S. Hock-
ey League player and co-founder
of Warroad Original Hockey Co.
Warroad, a hockey gear com-
pany co-founded by the Washing-
ton Capitals’ T.J. Oshie, has pro-
duced skate-cut resistant cloth-
ing since 2018. In August, the
company created a prototype of a
style of neck protection that aims
to provide players with comfort
while still protecting critical
points of the neck. Dyneema,
historically used to make durable
climbing rope, is the main com-
ponent in Warroad’s current cut-
resistant technology, dubbed
Cutlon, and upcoming neck pro-
tection. Warroad uses Dyneema
over Kevlar or other traditionally
tough fabrics.
With new innovations in neck
protection that strive for comfort
and protection, Olden hopes
more youth hockey players will
consider wearing neck guards to
prevent fatal or career-ending
injuries. Although Warroad’s
neck protection will not be avail-
able for purchase until the fall,
Olden reported that the Warroad
site saw an 80 percent increase in
sales of their cut-resistant prod-
ucts in the past week and a half.
“Statistically, yes, the odds are
with you that you won’t have that
kind of catastrophic injury,” Old-
en said. “But now it’s right in
front of us, and it’s a t rage dy that
shouldn’t happen in our game.”
— Hayley SalvatoreIndoor track
At this past weekend’s VA
Showcase in Virginia Beach,
Bullis’s girls again showed they
are among the best teams in the
country.
The Bulldogs’ 4x200-meter re-
lay team of Mirai Bernard, Mor-
gan Bridges, Myla Greene and
Sage Hinto grabbed a new U.S.
No. 1 time, finishing in 1 minute
39.19 seconds. Then Lauren
Leath, Bernard, Greene and Hin-
ton did it again in the 4x400,
finishing in 3:49.69 for another
No. 1 time.
The Bullis girls aren’t new to
dominating in the relays. They
set a national record in 2018 in
the 4x200 and have won that
event every year since at the VA
Showcase. Only once did they
finish anything other than first in
the 4x400.
But this year, because of coro-
navirus restrictions, Bullis got
clearance to compete only three
days before the showcase. De-
spite having to scramble to as-
semble their relay squad, the
Bulldogs came ready.
“The vibe at the showcase, it
was really electric because as a
team, we treat every day like it’s
our last, you know, because of
covid and everything,” Bernard
said. “So I think everybody was
just excited to get the opportu-
nity to actually run at a m eet.”
For Bridges, the 4x200 was her
first time running as anchor.
“I wasn’t really scared for any
of the endurance type thing, it
was more like nervousness of my
first real relay,” Bridges said. “It
was just a bit nerve-racking, espe-
cially on anchor.”Other top local performances
at the event included Walter
Johnson’s Katie Dutko, who ran
11:02.22 in the 3,200 meters;
Howard’s Kiara Murray, who reg-
istered 18 feet 2.25 inches in the
long jump; and the Bishop McNa-
mara boys’ 4x400 relay team.
— Aaron CredeurWrestling
The day before Paul VI hosted
its Panther Invitational this past
weekend, Danny Lowell’s team-
mates were telling him this
would be his day to bounce back.
The 160-pounder had yet to make
it over the hump in his senior
season, consistently f inding him-
self finishing second.
And when Lowell pinned Epis-
copal’s Nick Carosi, who was
ranked second in Virginia, he
turned his teammates’ words of
encouragement into reality.
“One of my coaches came up to
me and said, ‘I’m really proud of
you,’ ” Lowell said. “I was really
happy.”
The Panthers took first place at
their tournament, besting Lang-
ley by 30 points.
Lowell and Keegan McMahon
were among 15 Panthers to earn
points, with McMahon taking the
126-pound title. After winning a
state championship his freshman
year, the junior continues to im-
press.
“It’s just exciting, and I feel
accomplished,” McMahon said.
“Because all the effort and work I
put in all week — getting my
weight down and training for
that moment.”
Lowell — a senior who is clos-
ing in on 100 career wins — and
McMahon have led Paul VI to an
8-2 start this year.
“They’re the whole package,”
Coach Mike Eastman said.
“They’ve got both sides of the
work ethic, on and off the mat.”
— Shane ConnuckSwimming
Most online metrics place
Good Counsel senior Sean San-
tos among the top handful of
swimmers in Maryland, so at
this point in his career, he’s
accustomed to a high bar and a
top time. But in Sunday’s
500 freestyle at the National
Catholic Championships in Bal-
timore — where he won gold two
years ago as a sophomore — the
Georgia Tech commit had to
settle for a third-place finish.
“I’m really hard on myselfsometimes, and I think I just
need to learn that it’s okay to be
disappointed,” Santos said. “Now
it’s basically just focusing more
on the long term rather than the
short term.”
The slight dip in time is a
distinctive part of the high school
swim season; meets in January
and February often arrive at the
climax of a taxing training cycle
for the area’s most driven swim-
mers. Sunday’s final event was
Santos’s 10th race or practice
since the previous Monday, and
while he was moderately disap-
pointed in the result, he said
most swimmers are keeping their
focus on bigger races such as the
National Club Swimming Associ-
ation junior national champion-
ships in March.
Santos believes that also held
for the winner of the event, Gon-
zaga’s J.T. Ewing, who has swum
alongside Santos since the two
were in elementary school.
“We’ve raced each other count-
less times,” Santos said. “He de-
serves it.”
— Spencer NusbaumHIGH SCHOOL NOTES
Hockey player safety is under scrutiny after death
BY KYLE MELNICKAbout five minutes before one
of the area’s most anticipated high
school girls’ basketball games,
Bishop McNamara Coach Frank
Oliver hurried down his home
gym’s sideline with his phone
glued to his ear. With his school’s
administrators on the call and
Paul VI Coach Scott Allen nearby,
they discussed what to do based on
a separate conversation Oliver just
had with a n urse 10 minutes earli-
er.
One of his players’ coronavirus
tests that morning had come up
positive. So Oliver and Allen gath-
ered their teams near midcourt
with about 60 seconds until tip-off
in Forestville to inform them the
game had been postponed.
It was the latest — and perhaps
the most last-minute — example of
the challenges teams face as they
continue their seasons while the
pandemic persists.
“I wouldn’t have imagined that
at all,” said Oliver, 43, w ho played
at DeMatha in the mid-1990s. “I’ve
been playing this game all my life.
Thirty years I’ve been in the
[Washington Catholic Athletic
Conference] or around it, and I’ve
never seen anything like this.”
The Mustangs (7-4) canceled
their home showcase last weekend
because of the school prohibiting
spectators and the risks of wel-
coming out-of-state teams.
Around noon Tuesday, though, Oli-
ver confirmed No. 4 McNamara’s
game against No. 3 Paul VI (10-4)
would occur at 7 p .m. as scheduled.Both teams’ players warmed up
while rap music filled the gym. On
Paul VI’s bench, Allen considered
the excitement this top-five match-
up could provide. “This should be a
good one,” he said.
About five minutes later, Oliver
approached Allen, who walked
near the corner of the gym to call a
school administrator. A few min-
utes later, Allen walked back to
Oliver shaking his head.
Oliver and Allen crossed the
court to inform three referees the
game would be postponed. At
6:59 p.m., the officials left the gym
and the music hushed as the
coaches assembled their players
on each side of the court. After
brief meetings, players grabbed
their belongings and exited.
“They don’t know who else has
been infected,” Allen said. “And if
we play the game, then everyone
could be.”
Oliver said his players were not
in a healthy psyche to speak after
the game. T he Mustangs played
five games last season, and Oliver
said six of their games this winter
have been postponed or canceled.
As Oliver stood against a w all in
a near-empty gym, pondering the
contact tracing he will need to
complete in the next 24 hours to
determine whether his squad can
play Holy Cross on Friday, Allen
exited toward his team’s bus.
“All right, Scott,” Oliver said. “I’ll
give you a call tomorrow.”
“Yeah, we’ll figure it out,” Allen
responded. “It’s the right thing to
do.”
[email protected]Late postponement in WCAC
typifies season’s tenuousness
SCOTT TAETSCH FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTSenior Alayna Arnolie scored a game-high 15 points as No. 8 Madison handed No. 12 Oakton i ts first loss of the season Tuesday night.
BY SPENCER NUSBAUMMidway through the third quar-
ter, with the Madison girls’ basket-
ball team up big — as it often is in
district play — senior Alayna Arno-
lie took a quick look at her twin
sister, Grace.
Grace was on the other side of
the court, bolting toward the hoop
and drawing defenders and eyes
her way. It gave Alayna an advan-
tage on an Oakton defender, and
she drilled a step-back shot — one
of several she would bury on the
night — while drawing a foul.
Grinning, she locked eyes with
her sister again and whispered in
her ear as she strolled to the free
throw line. “I don’t think I was
fouled,” Alayna Arnolie said.
It was the sort of favorable mo-
ment No. 8 Madison (11-2) didn’t
need but enjoyed all the same as it
hammered previously unbeaten
Oakton, 69-36, in Vienna.
Executing with precision, the
Warhawks were dominant again
on their quest for a third straight
Class 6 state championship. Tues-
day’s blowout of the No. 12 Cougars
(13-1) may have been their most
impressive victory of the season.
Alayna scored a game-best
15 points and Grace added 13, and
according to the twins, their ability
to master the details is a product ofthe roster’s long service time to-
gether. The program returned all
but one player from last season.
“We always focus on the little
things in practice; we spend a lot of
time on our defense and working
through screens and stuff like
th at,” Grace Arnolie said. “We kind
of know what to look for, how to
help each other, how to lift each
other up.”
Coach Kirsten Stone packed her
team’s nonconference schedule
this season with private school op-
ponents — two of which are ranked
in The Washington Post’s top five.
The tough early slate puts the War-
hawks in position to thrive within
the Concorde District.
Many private schools are taller
and play with shot clocks, whichhas given Madison the opportunity
to strengthen its half-court offense
and perimeter movement. When
Oakton employed a zone defense
Tuesday, Madison adjusted quickly
and found its post players in the
same two spots on the baseline for
open shots to help close the half on
an extended 35-10 run.
For Madison, when getting “the
little things” done is a priority,
having two pairs of twins for the
third consecutive season helps
wit h chemistry.
“I think we’ve been playing to-
gether for so long that it’s kind of
unspoken,” Alayna Arnolie said. “I
know when she’s going to cut, she
knows when I’m going to cut, so it
just comes naturally to us.”
[email protected]VIRGINIA CONCORDE DISTRICT GIRLS’ BASKETBALL
‘Little things’ help Warhawks win big
MADISON 69,
OAKTON 36BY MICHAEL ERRIGOLate in the third quarter of his
team’s 77-62 win Tuesday against
Georgetown Prep, as St. Stephen’s/
St. Agnes pieced together its big-
gest run of the night, Saints senior
Garrett Brennan stood at the fore-
front of a frenzied bench and
edged closer to the court as he
mimicked a passionate closeout.
Brennan is one of a few relics
left from a pre-pandemic era of
success for the Saints, a p eriod in
which the program won two con-
ference titles on the back of an
all-out, physical defense.
Now that he’s a s enior leader on
a new-look Saints team, Brennan
likes to show his passion for de-
fense, on or off the court.
“All of the seniors viewed it as
our job to infuse that culture into
this team,” Brennan said. “I had to
let them know that [Coach Mike
Jones] wins with defense. We go to
work on defense.”
On Tuesday night in Alexandria,
the No. 9 Saints slowly turned up
the dial defensively to pull away
from No. 13 Georgetown Prep in an
important matchup in the Inter-
state Athletic Conference.
“We practice fast so we can play
fast,” said senior guard Devin Ceas-
er, a transfer from St. Mary’s
Ryken. “It can be challenging, but
we want it all to come together in
the games.”
Coming out of the 2019-20 sea-
son, the Saints (7-2) were the un-
questioned kings of the confer-
ence, dropping just one league
game across two championshipseasons. Now, like so many other
programs, they have emerged
from that void with hopes of rees-
tablishing themselves as a team to
beat in the D.C. area.
But the IAC is full of programs
ready to ensure that no team stays
atop the conference too long. Epis-
copal beat St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes
just last week, and Jones knows
each game will be a grind in this
long-delayed title defense.
“We want to bring the same type
of energy that that 2019 team
brought,” Jones said. “I’ve showed
them clips, just to give them an
idea of how hard they played and
what it takes.”
It was the Little Hoyas (6-5) who
held momentum early Tuesday,
maintaining a lead for much of the
first half. They flaunted a size ad-
vantage over the Saints and used it
to produce easy looks inside.
But the Saints, playing without
three key players because of the
covid protocols, kept their heads
and chipped away with a physical
half-court defense that produced
several steals.
By the third quarter, the Saints
had worn down the Prep offense
and pushed their lead to double
digits. Ceaser led the way with
21 points, and junior guard Mason
So added 19.
On the final possession of the
game, a Georgetown Prep player
fumbled a pass as the clock neared
zero. With the Saints on the verge
of a win, the home crowd already
had started to applaud. But an
assistant coach could still be heard
yelling from the bench, asking his
players to do what this team does:
keep playing defense.
“Get that ball,” he yelled. “Get on
the floor!”
[email protected]IAC BASKETBALLDefense-first approach puts
Saints back in prime position
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