Sixteen teams from three counties played thirty-one games at Heritage High School on Saturday. Lightridge won all six of theirs. They took Pool A without conceding a point in two of their three games, beat Independence 31 to 0 in the quarterfinal and Riverside 28 to 12 in the semifinal, and then won the championship 12 to 6 against Colgan Blue on the stadium field. Across the day Lightridge scored 147 and gave up 32.
The final
5:00 Championship, stadium field
The bracket
The top two from each pool advanced. Gold marks the eight who did.
3:00 Quarterfinals
4:00 Semifinals
The pools
Record, then points allowed, which is the tiebreaker. Gold marks the two from each pool who went through.
Pool A
| Lightridge | 3-0 | 14 |
| Heritage | 2-1 | 31 |
| Millbrook Frederick Co. | 1-2 | 67 |
| Park View | 0-3 | 87 |
Pool B
| Colgan Blue Prince William | 3-0 | 18 |
| Riverside | 1-1-1 | 69 |
| Freedom | 0-1-2 | 55 |
| Dominion | 0-2-1 | 57 |
Pool C
| Woodgrove | 3-0 | 46 |
| Independence | 2-1 | 38 |
| Sherando Frederick Co. | 1-2 | 65 |
| Rock Ridge | 0-3 | 66 |
Pool D
| John Champe | 3-0 | 6 |
| Loudoun Valley | 2-1 | 13 |
| Colgan Grey Prince William | 1-2 | 39 |
| Potomac Falls | 0-3 | 48 |
Not in it: Briar Woods, Broad Run, Loudoun County, Stone Bridge and Tuscarora.
Pool play, hour by hour
Winner in bold. Field 1 is the stadium. Field 2 and Field 3 are the back grass fields. Field 4 is the baseball field.
9:00 Round 1
10:00 Round 2
11:00 Round 3
12:00 Round 4
1:00 Round 5
2:00 Round 6
Some things that happened
Park View scored. Six points against Heritage at eleven o'clock in the morning. Park View had played five games in Loudoun's regular season and had not scored in any of them.
Two of the three unbeaten teams went home beaten. Heritage arrived at five wins from five and lost twice in a day, 13 to 0 to Lightridge in the morning and 19 to 7 to Woodgrove in the quarterfinal. Riverside also arrived at five from five, drew 12 all with Freedom in the first round, lost 39 to 6 to Colgan Blue, and went out to Lightridge in the semifinal. Lightridge, the third of them, is the one that is still perfect.
John Champe gave up six points all morning and won Pool D without conceding a touchdown after the first round. They lost the quarterfinal 26 to 6 to Riverside.
Colgan Blue came the furthest and got the closest. The Prince William squad won Pool B, beat Loudoun Valley and Woodgrove, and lost the final by six points. No school from outside Loudoun County finished higher.
Two games were drawn, both in Pool B and both involving Freedom: 12 all with Riverside, 6 all with Dominion. Pool play carries no overtime, so ties stand, and the tiebreaker is points allowed.
How the games work
The tournament was played under the LCPS Girls Flag Football Rules, the same rulebook Loudoun uses all season. The short version:
Seven a side, on a field of four 20-yard zones with a 10-yard end zone at each end. Four downs to reach the next zone. Two 24-minute halves with a running clock until the last minute of each half, and each team gets two timeouts. A touchdown is 6, and the scoring team then picks a try from the 3, 10 or 20-yard line worth 1, 2 or 3. A safety is 2. Nobody blocks beyond a standing screen, a runner may not dive, and a runner who loses her flag on her own is tagged with one hand instead. A team 19 or more ahead with five minutes left in the second half wins there.
In the bracket, a tie goes to overtime: alternating possessions from the 20-yard line until someone is ahead. In pool play and in the regular season there is no overtime at all, and a tie stands.
Loudoun's regular season, every date and every final, is on the schedule page. If we have anything here wrong, tell us and we will fix it the same day.
Every result on this page comes from the tournament's live scoresheet, kept by Heritage High School during the day and shared with us by James Totaro, athletic director at Heritage, who confirmed on September 20 that we could link it: “feel free. We did the same at the event.” The scoresheet itself is here, hosted by Heritage. Pools, times, fields and admission came from the tournament schedule he sent on September 3. Points allowed as the pool tiebreaker is his, on September 18. Records in the pool tables above are our own count from the thirty-one scores rather than the scoresheet's summary cells, which had Freedom at 0 and 0 and 3 where their games make it 0 and 1 and 2, and Sherando at 0 and 3 where they beat Rock Ridge 19 to 6 at one o'clock. Neither changed who advanced. Every team's points-allowed figure on the scoresheet matches what the individual scores add up to. Millbrook and Sherando are Frederick County Public Schools; Colgan is Charles J. Colgan Sr. High School in Prince William County. The rules summary is from the tournament packet's copy of the LCPS Girls Flag Football Rules. Earlier versions of our schedule page called this day the Heritage Invitational, from Park View's published schedule, and the NOVA Tournament, from Rock Ridge's. Heritage calls it the NOVA Flag Championship. If anything here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it the same day.