Kevin Pope tries to find the toughest opponents possible for Whitman. This year, in order to schedule a game against Good Counsel and still adhere to Montgomery County’s complex scheduling scheme, Pope had to arrange for Magruder to play Sandy Spring.
Pope made it all work and the result was an 8-5 loss to Good Counsel. In the process, however, the Vikings learned valuable lessons they perhaps would not have had they played an over-matched public school team.
Yesterday, when the Maryland Public Secondary School Athletic Association released its playoff draw, Whitman (8-3) was seeded No. 9 in the 4A-3A West Region despite defeating three of the top four seeds — No. 1 Sherwood, No. 3 Wootton, and No. 4 Churchill. Costing Whitman a higher seed was the Good Counsel loss coupled with an 8-6 loss to another private school team, Bullis.
“Those games shouldn’t count,” said Whitman goalie Bobby Lawrence. “Nobody else had to play Good Counsel. But games like that help us in the long run. Those games are definitely worth the experience.”
Whitman has a tough path. If it gets past No. 8 Springbrook (6-6) Thursday, it will face No. 1 Sherwood (10-3) Saturday in the quarterfinals. The Vikings beat Sherwood, 13-6, Thursday.
In other quarterfinal games, No. 5 Paint Branch (7-4) travels to No. 4 Churchill (9-5); No. 2 Walter Johnson (9-2) will play the winner of Thursday’s game between No. 10 Blake (4-7) and No. 7 B-CC (7-4); No. 3 Wootton (9-2) will take on No. 6 Blair (4-7) or No. 11 Einstein (1-9).
