by Reid Duvall ’27

Varsity football has dominated in its past three games, with back-to-back shutout wins in two of them and while out-scoring its opponents 109-19. The streak improved the Warrior’s record on the season to 4-1. They sit in 4th place in the Montgomery County East division, trailing Quince Orchard, Paint Branch, and Blair.

The first of the winning stretch was Magruder where the team was without starting QB Matt Larsen, along with star seniors Khalil Wilson and Brendan Heyer. The team still scored 40 points in a 40-19 win over the local rivals. Next was Blake, with the past two meetings between the regional rivals having come down to the wire. Last season, Blake won 31-28 on a game-winning field goal in overtime, and in 2022 Sherwood escaped 27-21 on a hail mary as time ran out. The Warriors controlled this year’s matchup as Wilson scored an eighty-yard touchdown on the first play and never looked back, winning 24-0. The most recent of the stretch was this past Friday on homecoming against Gaithersburg. When the teams met last season, Gaithersburg won at home 35-28. This year Sherwood struggled out the gates without Larsen and only scored 7 points by half. In the 2nd half, the team scored 28 points to cruise to a 35-0 win.

This week, the Warriors will play host to Damascus on Thursday, October 9. Damascus, which has won five state championships in the past 10 years, is off to a 4-1 start as well. When the teams met last season Sherwood won 28-21. “We know they want to get back for last year so we have to be going 100 mph in practice and hitting every rep with full intensity,” said  Larsen. This tough Damascus team will be another test for what has been a dominant Sherwood defense.