Osbourn Park Shakes Things Up

Trailing 1-0 to district rival Osbourn on April 1, Osbourn Park Coach Larry Nemerow decided to shift around his lineup to see how the team would respond.

Nemerow flip-flopped juniors Matt Carey and Drew Ruggles, sliding Ruggles from the central midfield to the back line and moving Carey up into the middle, and immediately things seemed to click for the top-ranked Yellow Jackets.

"It was like getting a tuneup in your car," Nemerow said. "Everything seemed to move better."

Osbourn Park responded by scoring three goals in the final 15 minutes to down ninth-ranked Osbourn and remain undefeated. But more importantly, the come-from-behind win proved to be a vital learning experience for a team that had been making up in talent what it lacked in chemistry, players said.

The Yellow Jackets (6-0) have 12 players back from last year's Virginia AAA Northwest Region championship squad, and the experience has benefited a team that has dominated opponents.

Five players have scored at least three goals for Osbourn Park, while nine have registered at least one goal. And junior goalkeeper Dylan Leygraaf has stepped in seamlessly for graduated All-Met goalkeeper Joey Dennis, registering four shutouts and allowing just two goals in six games.

"I knew I had big shoes to fill," Leygraaf said. "And I knew my team was counting on me to fill those shoes. So in the preseason and the beginning of the season, I had to work real hard and train real hard."

Fast Start for Oakton

Brooke Alexander faced some difficult decisions in welcoming in a wave of young talent in her first year as coach of the Oakton girls' team.

"Changing the culture is not easy," said Alexander, who took over a program that has traditionally been a bottom-dweller in the highly competitive Virginia AAA Concorde District. "But now that we're winning, people are starting to see that it's effective."

The Cougars welcomed eight freshmen, with five of them earning starting positions. The infusion of young talent resulted in an undefeated start in which the Cougars (5-0, 1-0) outscored their first five opponents 28-2.

Freshmen Alex Weaver, Danielle Fitzgerald, Alex Meyers and twin sisters Caroline and Katherine Coyer have worked their way into the starting lineup and came in with advanced skill sets learned at the club level, giving Alexander freedom to move them around the field.

Oakton, which mainly plays in a 4-4-2 formation, has also used a 4-4-3, a 3-5-2 and a 4-5-1, making them one of the area's most diverse and unpredictable attacks.

"We're being very experimental because we have a lot of speed," Alexander said.

Meyers and the Coyer twins -- a pair that helped the Oakton girls' basketball team reach the state finals this winter -- are from the Chantilly Burn, an area club power. Fitzgerald is track standout who went to the state tournament this winter as part of the girls' 4x200 meters relay team.

"I think the future looks pretty good," said Myers, a speedy forward who has scored 13 goals.