On the Sidelines with Dan Sousa: Freedom is the Place to Be this Spring

On the Sidelines with Dan Sousa

(May 30, 2012) - Freedom High School opened in 2005 and I'm not sure I covered a game being played in the spring in South Riding for the first four years. It wasn't anything personal but with so many high schools in Loudoun you go where the big match-ups are and Freedom struggled in the formative years to build winning spring athletic teams.

Fast forward to Memorial Day 2012 and my quest to see as many regional playoffs games in one spot as possible and that has meant for years Broad Run but this year, I started out at Broad Run as the Spartans took on Colonial Forge in the Northwest Region regional quarterfinals at 4 p.m.

Awaiting me with a trio of big games was Freedom High School with proud athletic director Matt Oblas overseeing Northwest Region baseball, boys soccer and girls soccer quarterfinals. Freedom is the hot spot now for spring AAA athletics.


Of course, Broad Run had such a run through the AA Dulles District for several years that I covered so many games in Ashburn that the school had my own Gator with a Viva Loudoun vanity plate. Now when I show up at Broad Run I have to undergo a full body scan just to get a roster!

The Spartans softball team is a nice little story. While Woodgrove, Briar Woods and Loudoun County gained attention in the Dulles and Stone Bridge rolled through the Liberty District, the Spartans quietly captured the Cedar Run District title in their first season up to AAA with a roster that has as many freshman and sophomores (4 total) as seniors.

It was good to see Ed Steele in the third base coaching box and his assistant Dave Morris, looking fit enough to run one of those Spartan races, in the first base box ... one of the spring constants since my first year of coverage in 2005-06.

Broad Run senior Ashley Ferrara and the Colonial Forge starter were locked in a scoreless battle into the bottom of the eighth inning but that didn't mean that the hitters weren't swatting the ball. Both teams had multiple deep fly balls that on a slightly breezy day, it would have been home run trots all around but everything settled into a glove on this muggy afternoon.

Broad Run had a chance to mentally letdown after a base running error turned one potential winning rally into a numbing inning-ending double play, but the Spartans showed heart as junior Erika D'Argenio led off the bottom of the 8th inning with a walk,

One of the nice things about the postseason is I get to privately "root" for the local teams against the out-of-towner's and it makes it even more fun when it is somebody like D'Argenio, whose parents Steve and Dolores do more good work in the community in one month than I could do in my lifetime.

Junior Francesca Beller followed with a sacrifice bunt attempt that was so good that she easily beat the throw down to first to put two runners on with no outs. Another great sac bunt, this time by sophomore Kamille Larrabee, moved the runners into scoring position. So with one out, junior McKall Miller lofted a fly to shallow right and D'Argenio got a great jump as the catch was made. (Read more on the game from the Loudoun Times-Mirror).

The throw was on line and the CF catch swiped as the speedy D'Argenio slid across the plate. It was bang-bang and the home plate umpire did not hesitate with the safe call. That brought joy to Broad Run and had the CF coach hopping mad. The umpires conferred briefly and the call stood ... Broad Run would move on ... and so would I as I jogged out to my car to get down to South Riding.

My first stop in South Riding was the main stadium where the Eagles boys soccer team was ready to follow up on its banner year already with the Cedar Run District regular-season as well as tournament titles.

Second-year coach Chris Pruden, a Broad Run product, has Freedom playing a good brand of soccer and it was already 1-0 when I arrived with Philip McQuitty already having put Freedom up 1-0 in the 23rd minute.

McQuitty is an imposing physical player on the pitch and after Franklin County had tied the game in the 51st minute, he took a ball about 20 yards out with his back to goal, turned and fired off a rocket of a shot to make it 2-1 with 18 minutes left. The Eagles got some insurance when James Parades was taken down in the 18 by the opposing keeper and he converted the ensuing penalty kick in the 72nd minute.

That goal was needed as FC scored just a moment later but Freedom added a goal with just seconds left as William Morrill finished off a counter attack. (Read more about the game from the Loudoun Times-Mirror here)

I had been keeping an eye on the baseball game where the Loudoun Times-Mirror had yet another freelancer ... making it three LTM writer-for-hire going up against the Viva Loudoun "Fox" ...no problem except for as I watched the Eagles pound Stafford 11-3 for the regional baseball win I took one for the team ... off the ankle. Watching the game down the left field line, just past what appears to be a cornfield growing near the Freedom dugout (Build It ... and They Will Come?) and an in-between innings warm-up ball, skittered past the reserve playing catch and went right under the fence and smacked my ankle.

(I will take a moment to let readers feel sorry for me and my aging body ... OK, enough time?)

I Tweeted for ice but none came so I toughed it out ... And marveled at the Eagles hitting machine with coach Jason Treon, waving in so many runners that he was icing his shoulder between innings. Treon, who also is an assistant football coach at Stone Bridge, is a great guy with tons of energy and you can feel his touch on the program.

Freedom starter Andrew Lamont after giving up a couple of early runs was money on the mound and Freedom just kept banging out extra base hits. (Don't believe me, read the Loudoun Times-Mirror story here by Jason S. Rufner ... and we like to think the S like Harry S Truman stands for nothing!)

While it was Freedom's first AAA region win ever in baseball, coming on the heels of last year's first round Region II win, it didn't feel like it as the team has confidence and with another win tonight they will head to AAA states. Same for boys soccer. Both teams play in South Riding at 6 p.m. tonight in regional semifnals.

Freedom is again the place to be but there will only be two games as the girls soccer team fell Monday, 3-1, in a game that could have just as easily won. Colonial Forge did what any good road team does and that is take the home field advantage away with an early goal just six minutes in.

The Eagles tied it just three minutes later on a Rachel Ivey score and that is where the score stayed.

Freedom was the better team for remainder of the first half and much of the second half but an amazing save by the CF keeper, a shot that went off the crossbar and half a dozen other missed offensive opportunities left it still 1-1 when CF was awarded a penalty kick in the 66th minute.

I hate penalty kicks on questionable fouls in the box and this was a so-so hand ball call -- a Freedom defender was spinning around to block a shot and the ball struck her arm slightly extended from the body ... a call that more than half the time will go uncalled by officials.

The Eagles needed to press, gave up a late goal in the closing minutes to fall 3-1 and end a great season.