By Josh Averbach ’18

Sherwood has a good football team–that much is inarguable. Last year, the Warriors won ten games in a row before losing in the playoffs. Coming off of this strong season, they have started off 2017 strong by steamrolling Magruder 44-0 and jumping from twentieth to sixteenth in The Washington Post’s metro area rankings on September 4.

But just how good is Sherwood? That question may be answered on Friday, September 8, when the Warriors play on the road against the fourth-ranked Swarmin’ Hornets of Damascus. Damascus has won back-to-back 3A state championships the last two years, and were state runner-ups the year before that. Damascus’s talented roster even features the top-ranked sophomore in the country, according to the popular college sports website 247sports: a defensive end named Bryan Bresee, who will look to get into the backfield and disrupt Sherwood’s ground and air attacks.

To escape Damascus with a victory, Sherwood’s offense–led by senior quarterback Michael Mbony–will have to find a few holes in Damascus’s vaunted defense. Success in this endeavor would signal that Sherwood football is a force to be reckoned with.