The Herndon Hornets won the Baron Cameron Bowl for the 11th time since 1999, traveling to Reston Monday night and beating the South Lakes Seahawks, 33-7.
The teams parried through the opening minutes of the game until two Seahawks mistakes, a bad snap on an attempted punt and an interception, led to two quick Hornets touchdowns and a 14-0 lead. South Lakes rallied on a Rashaan Jones run to close the gap to 14-7 before Herndon's Josh Schow scored his second touchdown of the quarter for a 20-7 halftime lead.
Herndon finally put the game away with two fourth quarter touchdown runs from Ky Parrott and Darrius Hicks to close the scoring.
The game was stopped for over 20 minutes early in the first quarter while Herndon junior defensive back Ryan Richards was removed from the playing field via ambulance with an apparent left leg injury.
Herndon evened its record at 1-1 and hosts Yorktown Friday, while winless South Lakes (0-2) goes on the road to Stone Bridge.
As W&M is a D-IAA school and UVA is a D-IA school they are, by classification not rivals. But the point that's missed is SL could have established rivalries with any number of FCPS schools closer in size and competitive ability to it over last two decades and identified them as a main rival but chose not to.
On whether rivals should play each other when their student bodies are of different sizes, I don't know how large that difference was during the past 15 years, but there's a lot more to the success of an athletic program than the size of a student body, beginning with support by families and among the community, a development program and high-quality leagues, and high-quality coaching staffs at all levels. The very best high school coaching staffs are involved with middle school programs, summer camps and local leagues to help develop their future talent. (It's also helpful when kids aren't charged for pick-up games on local fields, but that's another topic). Take a look at the Reston Little League all stars this year. They won the state championship despite being drawn from a much smaller pool than other areas. In any case, I always enjoyed playing against my superiors. I rarely had to look far!
More than most sports, high school football success is related to the size of the pool of boys a coach has to draw from. That's why VHSL re-aligns the divisions every few years, moving FCPS schools from Division 5 to Division 6 or vice versa. There's never been any sports program at FCPS middle schools since I moved here in 1984. The Reston Youth Football program has low rates of participation, has 70% of the kids on scholarship and they have to practice in the dark. I'm very familiar with the Reston Nationals as my son coached 4 of the players during their regular Little League season. Few will wind up at SL. One definition of "rivals" is two groups of equal quality. If one of two teams wins 80% of the contests between the two teams, the teams cannot be described as being of equal quality.
You don't get to pick your rivals. They're determined naturally. As a W&M alum (albeit not a collegiate athlete), there's no team I'd rather they beat than UVA. The rivalry might not be mutual, but it's very real, despite the division differences.
So there wouldn't be an announcement. The DSA and coach would just request 3 non-district schools that aren't Herndon, like Falls Church, Yorktown and Wakefield. Langley, Marshall, McLean and Madison which are in the Liberty District with SL have become annual games. So why isn't Madison (Vienna) SL's rival? Reston doesn't play Herndon in Little League play-offs. They play Vienna. Vienna and Reston have made up the same magisterial district as long as anyone can remember.
In any case, this thread has become tiresome. You'd be hard pressed to locate anyone in Reston who believes that SLHS & Herndon aren't rivals, and you've acknowledged that the sizes of the schools are getting closer again. If there's sufficient desire and good coaching, perhaps we'll turn things around.
Just to keep your information straight, Reston-Herndon is a single Little League. The Herndon kids have the option of playing Cal Ripken or Little League and there are a number of Herndon kids that play in Reston Little League, including Brandon Guyer of the Tampa Bay Rays.
Since you left, SL moved from Concorde to Liberty. Herndon became a non-district game played before the district games. Thus, over the last decade of continuing losses, the season got off on a downer every year and important players were lost for the season before it had hardly begun.
I see far more Langley logos in Reston town center than Herndon Hornets stuff. Maybe Langley should be the rival.
the teams from the Herndon Optimists Cal Ripken league do not play the teams from the Reston Little League. Don't Little League rules prohibit such cross league games? Every fall and in the playoffs Reston and Vienna Little League teams play each other. And Reston kids sometimes choose to play in the Herndon Cal Ripken league instead of Reston Little League, but most Reston kids play in Little League and most Herndon kids play in Cal Riken. And those teams don't play each other. Now the information is straight.
So as they say on TV, "KIds don't try this at home."
The re-assignment would be to a third school. Its a serious disruption in a kids life and a total overreaction by FCPS; so, I'd hope you wouldn't encourage it or treat the situation frivolously.
http://www.rctv28.com
Some from your neighborhood did, making much noise about their fealty to HHS. They lived in Reston but didn't want to be part of Reston's high school. They came to be known residents of "East Herndon."
My observation of "rivalries" is that they are principally the product of administrator's actions. They gin up the energy level to sell tickets even when there;s no hope of a competitive game. Sort of like fight promoters. Thus, they're using the kids for less than educational and altruistic purposes. To address Kerri's comment, which has now somehow disappeared, I don't want to end the basketball rivalry which has been competitive, spirited and respectful, especially when Gary Hall was coaching Herndon. It's possible to maintain a rivalry in one sport or activity and not in all sports or activities. When my oldest daughter played basketball at SL, their big and intense rivalry was Oakton which never gave the SL boys team much of a game and the Herndon girls cagers didn't gave SL much of a challenge. I just wish the sweetness happened more often for the kids living south of Baron Cameron - 5 times in 31 years ain't right. For too many of these, there's not nearly enough sweetness in their lives.
"It's the Herndon game!" said many students and parents. It's not just about football. It's because the kids all know each other.
Do the coaches gin it up or is it the kids? Is it really Herndon versus Reston or is it North Reston versus South Reston?