Gameday Notebook: Week 4 (Northern Region)
STERLING, VA - With Week 3 being the final tune-up before district play starts, we honestly don't know what to expect by season's end. Each district has its own surprises, and there is no real clear-cut favorite. Stone Bridge is no longer a dominant favorite in the Liberty, the Patriot is a logjam from the first through third positions, and Edison might have seemed to hit a roadblock on offense. Then there's the Concorde where, well, there's about five teams that can win it all.
So as district play starts and the non-district schedule comes to a close, we look back on Week 3 and evaluate who's looking strong and as a possible threat to walk away as a 'district champ.'
IMPROVING
West Springfield, Centreville, Fairfax, West Potomac, and Lake Braddock are all teams that have gotten significantly better since Week 1. Entering district play, all these teams have to be comfortable about where they now stand. Lake Braddock, Centreville, and Fairfax have taken their offenses from stagnant to efficient and all of them could now make some noise in their respective districts. West Springfield and West Potomac meanwhile have now elevated themselves as the top contenders in the Patriot where they have lethal offenses and a durable defense.
BRING IN MR. FIX-IT
Oakton, Robinson, Marshall, and Yorktown all have to be a little more apprehensive about this week than the other teams. All were expected to do fairly well, but have fallen a bit short of expectations. The beauty of the Northern Region is that all of them still have a quality shot at winning their district. So with these teams having obvious problems that need to be identified, now is the perfect time to fix whatever the problem is before it's too late.
BATTLE TESTED
The Lee Lancers have just finished running through a gauntlet that included the likes of Edison, Westfield, and Centreville. Yet that was their non-district schedule. Their district opener is against #9 West Potomac this week, so things don't get any easier for Lee. If there's one thing though that Lee head coach Rob Everett prides himself on, it's that he loves to play the best competition possible and he's certainly getting that wish this year.
THE CHANTILLY SHOWDOWN
So we all knew the Chantilly-Westfield game would be huge when we first saw it on the schedule, yet this could be the biggest Concorde district regular season game we've seen in a long time. All preseason predictions have these two teams pegged as the two premier teams in the Northern Region and Northern Virginia area. Now on Thursday, we get to see both Westfield and Chantilly get to do battle and see who is in fact number one.
