Three one-point games,
and all three finished 7 to 6

Loudoun County played seventy three games of girls flag football in its first regular season and three of them were decided by a single point. All three finished 7 to 6. Lightridge won two, against Independence on September 24 and against Freedom on October 1. Riverside won the other, against Heritage on September 28.

Those are the only one-point games the county played all season, and the two schools that won them are the two that did not lose a game. Riverside finished nine from nine, Lightridge eight from eight.

The margins came in as the season went on

In August the county played seventeen games and the middle margin was seventeen points. In September it played thirty eight and the middle margin was fourteen. In the eighteen games played in October the middle margin was ten.

The same shape shows up two other ways. Games decided by eight points or fewer went from five of seventeen in August, to twelve of thirty eight in September, to nine of eighteen in October. Games in which one side was held scoreless went from ten of seventeen in August to eight of eighteen in October.

These are small numbers from a single season. We have no earlier Loudoun record of our own to set them against, and we are not offering a reason for the movement. We are keeping the figures so that next year has something to measure from.

October 13

The Loudoun county semifinals and final were set for Tuesday October 13 at Potomac Falls, three games in one evening at 5:30, 6:30 and 7:30.

According to Nicholas Siano, the athletic director at Potomac Falls, the bracket crosses the county's two halves. The Region 1 top seed draws the Region 2 runner-up, the Region 2 top seed draws the Region 1 runner-up, and the two winners meet for the title. Siano set out the format and the kick times in writing on October 2.

The final standings fill it in. Lightridge and Freedom took the top two places in Region 1, Riverside and Heritage in Region 2, which sends Lightridge against Heritage and Riverside against Freedom. The pairings follow from the standings rather than from a draw anyone has published.

The final Loudoun standings

The table is sorted by winning percentage, then by wins, then alphabetically. That is our sort and not an official ranking. Loudoun has not published a standings order, so where two schools are level the alphabet breaks the tie. Winning percentage leads because the schedule is uneven: ten schools played nine games and seven played eight, so ordering on wins alone would rank a school for having played more football.

The county's own tiebreakers, confirmed by Matt Oblas at Riverside on October 2, start at head to head and finish at a coin flip, with no points component anywhere in the chain. Those are what decide seeds, and they are not what orders this table.

Loudoun played the whole season without a tie. Every one of the seventy three games produced a winner. No two schools met each other twice either, so every head to head result in the county this season rests on a single game.

Five schools finished on four wins: Broad Run, Independence, John Champe, Loudoun County and Potomac Falls. Two of them played eight games and three played nine, and that is the whole of what separates them in the table.

What the full record shows

Heritage scored 210 points, more than any other school in the county, and Lightridge are next on 182. Riverside gave up 31 across nine games, fewer than anyone else. Heritage and Riverside each held an opponent scoreless five times, which is more than any other school managed, and Freedom did it four times. Broad Run won all four of the games in which they scored.

Thirty seven of the seventy three games ended with one side held scoreless. The other thirty six had both schools on the board.

The conference up the road has a name

Dick Adams, who runs flag football for the Fairfax County Public Schools student activities office, confirmed on October 9 that the league north of us is the NOVA Flag Football Conference. We had been calling it the Northern Virginia league since October 6, and before that we called it Fairfax, which it never was.

Thirty schools, in five pods of six, drawn from Fairfax County, Arlington, Alexandria City and Falls Church City. Twenty five of the thirty are Fairfax County schools. Every pair inside a pod meets twice, so each school plays ten games, and nobody plays outside their pod. The regular season runs from September 29 to November 4.

Our conference page now carries the first three weeks, seventy four scored games. The standings there are computed from the scores rather than copied from the league's table. For weeks one and two the two agreed on all thirty rows. For week three they agree on twenty six, and the four rows that differ are marked, with the queries behind them set out. One week three game has no score.

What is coming

Our Loudoun calendar has nothing after October 13.

The NOVA Flag Football Conference plays on Tuesday October 20 and Wednesday October 21, then October 27 and 28, then November 3 and 4. Games go at 6:00, 7:00 and 8:00, two or three of them back to back at one host school. The playoffs are on Wednesday November 11 at Hayfield and Falls Church, and on Saturday November 14 at Robinson, where the final is at 12:30.

Report a score

Anyone can send us a final. The form takes about half a minute and asks for the two schools, the score and how you know. Coaches and athletic directors can send a photograph of the scoresheet instead of typing anything. Everything goes up free, credited to whoever gave it to us, and if we get something wrong we correct it and say in print that we were wrong.

Earlier: Issue No. 7, Head to head, then a coin flip · Issue No. 6, Three unbeaten, and Monday · Issue No. 5, Twenty-two shutouts · Issue No. 4, Three left unbeaten · Issue No. 3, Five still unbeaten · Issue No. 2, All seventeen, on the field · Issue No. 1, The whole fall in one place.