The regular season has come to an end, and so has the district tournament. Centreville Boys Basketball had a showing respectable enough to be considered a team that should be taken seriously, while Girls Basketball legitimized the claim that they were one of the teams to beat in Virginia. Now with Regionals underway this coming week, the going gets quite tough. 

In the playoff system here in the Concorde District, all six Concorde teams participate in the district’s postseason tournament, with seeding based on their regular season district-play records. The four teams who make the second round advance to Regionals, 

At regionals, the four Concorde teams then join the top four Liberty District teams and play in an 8-team knockout bracket. The Concorde teams take on the Liberty teams in the first round, so the top seed in the Concorde faces the four seed in the Liberty, the Concorde’s two seed faces the Liberty’s three seed, and you can do the math from there. The Concorde District’s representatives at Regionals are seeded based off of how well they performed in the district tournament. From the semis onwards, it’s intertwined until the state tournament. 

The two teams who make the regional final are guaranteed spots at the Class 6 State Tournament, whether they become regional champions or not. At states, the Northern Region’s top 2 teams from every other region each, for a winner-take-all 8-team knockout bracket. In this case, the Northern Region teams face the Occoquan Region teams in the quarterfinals, where the North’s top seed faces the Occoquan’s second seed and vice versa. Then, it’s all intertwined from the semis onward once again, all culminating in the grand final in March.

Let’s take a look at how the teams are faring so far:

Centreville Boys (#3 at Districts, Concorde’s #2 at Regionals)

In the boys’ tournament, Centreville was the three seed based on their district record of 6-4. The Wildcats were able to thrillingly pull away from James Madison 74-64 in overtime on February 16th in order to make the second round of the tournament, automatically qualifying them for Regionals. The Wildcats then pulled off a shocking win against second-seeded Oakton, winning 48-46 on the 19th, surprising everybody by clinching a spot in the final, giving them a top two seeding at Regionals. But of course, Westfield had to be in the way, and outmatched Centreville as the Wildcats were handed a 74-46 loss in the final, a 28 point margin, the worst of the season.

With their surprise appearance in the tournament final, the Wildcats represent the Concorde as their two-seed, facing off against the Liberty District’s three-seed. In this case, it’s the Langley Saxons. Originally the five-seed in their respective district tournament, the Saxons defeated four-seed Wakefield 49-41 in the first round, but fell to eventual champion George C. Marshall in the second round. However, with six-seed Herndon defeating three-seed McLean in the first round, Langley’s five-seed ranking is the third best out of the four that made the second round, giving them the Liberty District’s three-seed at Regionals. 

Luckily for Centreville, Langley’s 13-11 record isn’t as good as Westfield’s, but they’re still a proper basketball team. They boast talent such as First Team All-District guard Campbell Tyler, a player who was good enough to make the varsity team as a freshman. Second Team All-District guard-forward Tyler Kim continues to play well. But the most notable player on their roster is certainly the Liberty District’s Defensive Player of the Year, Leej Evans. Fourth-year head coach Dave Conrow has led the Saxons to their first winning season since 2022.

The Wildcats will have to make sure to be able to put up with Langley’s size and shooting. Centreville has the potential and the real capability to do so. But the Wildcats will have to shoot more consistently, especially with free throws, be able to cover space better on defense in transition particularly quickly, and get out of foul trouble as best as they can. They shouldn’t be scared of any opposition no matter how prominent they could be. If Maddox Davis gets hot, he stays hot for a good bit of time. That streak was evident in the Concorde final against Westfield, when he scored 15 of his 20 points in the third quarter alone. Kobe Clement has been back from injury for quite some time now, and that’s been very assuring for this Wildcat roster who struggled to find their rhythm without him earlier on in the season. These days, the Wildcats have proven that they can get wins when they need to, winning against Oakton in the second round. Now, it’s all-or-nothing at this point for Centreville Boys Basketball.

Centreville Boys Basketball plays the Langley Saxons on February 24th at 7:30pm ET.

Centreville Girls (#1 in Districts, Concorde’s #2 at Regionals)

Centreville Girls Basketball had in fact already qualified for Regionals even before the tournament started, as they had already clinched a first-round bye after defeating Oakton on February 2nd, automatically giving them a place in Regionals. They clinched the tournament’s top seed after defeating Chantilly 55-43 on the 10th, finishing with a district record of 9-1. Nevertheless, when tournament time came, the Wildcats destroyed James Madison 54-19 in their second round encounter on the 19th. Unfortunately, the Wildcats were not able to clinch the district title, once again falling to Oakton in the final, losing a particularly painful 39-36 loss in overtime on the 20th.

Falling to Oakton in the final meant that the Wildcats clinched the Concorde’s two-seed at Regionals. In the Liberty District, the top four seeds in their tournament all made it to the second round, and so the three-seed in the Liberty District tournament is the team that will face Centreville in the regional quarterfinal, and that is the Yorktown Patriots. The Patriots got here as the three-seed in the Liberty District tournament, comfortably defeating six-seed McLean 61-26 in the first round, but losing out to two-seed Washington-Liberty 62-36.

Yorktown boasts two All-District First Teamers in MIT commit Eleanor Mashie and forward Olivia Shiplett. Lily Porter was named Co-Rookie of the Year in the Liberty District, and versatile guard Elena Debevec continues to play well. Former McLean assistant and Marymount player Jessica Turgon has done very well in her first year as head coach of the Patriots, bringing them back to winning ways at 12-9, culminating a successful rebuild over the past four seasons.

The Wildcats will have to deal with a formidable Yorktown defense, with length on defense being a key factor in the way Coach Turgon designed it. There are really good scorers all around this Patriots squad as well, so the Wildcats will have a good test defensively. Like the boys, the girls also struggled with both shot consistency and foul trouble in their district final, and although Oakton wasn’t able to keep up with the Wildcats’ 14-4 scoring run in the fourth quarter which forced overtime. But with Kownacki fouling out during the fourth quarter, the Wildcats were not able to take the shots the way they wanted to in overtime, and lost both the district title as well as the Concorde District’s top seed at Regionals to the Cougars. But they do know how to shoot the ball well when needed. Aliza Murray is a certified threat from three-point range, often shooting and scoring from deep and near-audacious distances. Dani Cuellar doesn’t shoot as frequently as Murray, but when she does, she comes up with it especially in clutch time. Molly Veley has also become a bit of a dark horse in terms of shooting prowess, oftentimes able to get a three-ball off when the Wildcats are down by formidable deficits. Kaylee-Anne Wimmer and Aidan Kownacki continue to play well in the paint as they always have. Malia Siriwardene knows how to score on both inside and outside the arc, and definitely knows she will have to do better after dropping only two points against Oakton in the district final. It’s that time of year again for the girls team; yet another campaign at regionals.

Centreville Girls Basketball plays the Yorktown Patriots on February 24th at 5:45pm ET.

It’s been the boys team’s best season in the Gordon Person era, the team’s best performance since. The girls team has continued to perform very well consistently, over the last four seasons. Here’s to yet another regional playoff campaign where both the boys and girls are involved. 

Wildcat Nation, Let’s Ride.