Triumph and tragedy.

If anything could sum up the year in sports for Battlefield and Brentsville District, it is the culmination of athletic success on the playing field with heartbreaking losses off of it.

Each high school earned a first-of-its-kind state championship. Battlefield's varsity football team surprised practically every high school sports prognosticator by knocking out three previously undefeated teams during the playoffs en route to capturing the Group AAA crown, a first for any sports team at Battlefield.

For Brentsville, the boys swimming team overcame its own hurdles as it won the Group AA title despite not even having a dive team and being snowed out of the regional championship. The win marked the 34th state championship victory by a team in the history of Brentsville but the first for any swimming squad.

Off the field, the Brentsville and Battlefield communities mourned the death of two athletes: Brentsville's Austin Trenum, a senior varsity lacrosse and football player, and Battlefield's Derek Meffert, a rising sophomore on his way to playing junior varsity football.

The year also included coaching major coaching changes for both schools. The Battlefield school administration dismissed Matt Caudle from the baseball program after parents raised complaints about his coaching style following a sub-.500 season. Meanwhile, Brentsville's long-time football and boys basketball coaches ended their careers as Dean Reedy and Chris Southcott both stepped down following consecutive losing seasons.

Battlefield

Going into the fall 2010 sports season, Battlefield teams had drawn a reputation during the last few years for being almost good enough to go all the way in state tournaments.

Almost.

Softball, girls soccer, boys soccer, and gymnastics teams all came within a hair of a state title, falling in painfully close championships. Battlefield's football team even made it to states before with a Northwest regional crown to its credit in 2009. But with the loss of its star quarterback and other valuable seniors, surely there was no way that two first-year quarterbacks could possibly guide Battlefield back to the promised land.

During the regular season, Battlefield appeared to a good team, a strong team even, but not quite state championship caliber. The 8-2 Bobcats put up tough fights against both Osbourn and Hylton, but ended up in the L column both times against teams that went undefeated.

With Battlefield's 33-game winning streak snapped, the Bobcats faced long odds heading into the Division 6 regional playoffs.

A funny thing happened though: "revenge" became the all-consuming mantra on the Battlefield sidelines.

Led by a tandem of running backs including senior standouts Nagee Jackson and Bobo Beathard, the Bobcats disposed of Gar-Field in the first round of regions, earning a trip back to Hylton. On the Woodbridge school's yellowed field, Battlefield's quarterbacks Ryan Swingle and Devon Greene, always rotating, continuously caught the Bulldogs off guard while the offensive line and Jackson devastated the Hylton defense. Final score: 48-14.

"If we play like this every game, we can win states," said Beathard after the game.

In the regional final against undefeated home team Colonial Forge, a team stacked with future NCAA Division I-A talent, Battlefield did just that. Final score: Bobcats 42, Eagles 14.

Something was happening.

Next, in the state semi-finals, Battlefield's veterans sought even greater revenge, this time against the Lake Braddock team that eliminated the Bobcats from the 2009 state tournament in a double-overtime melee. After giving up a field goal on the Bruins' opening drive, Battlefield never looked back and plowed to a 35-27 victory, sending head coach Mark Cox back to his first state tournament since he played for Annandale High School in 1978.

Alas, in Charlottesville, at the University of Virginia's Scott Stadium, undefeated Central region champion Hermitage was supposed to put an end to all the silliness allowing some underdog from Haymarket, a team without a single Division I-A signee, to make it this far with two losses under its belt.

Try again.

The sophomore Swingle launched two first-half touchdown strikes to Andrew Smith and Jason Hoepker while Greene responded in the second half by hooking up with Turner Meeks. Beathard sealed the deal for Battlefield with a 30-yard interception return for a touchdown in the fourth quarter to give Battlefield a resounding 26-7 victory and the school's first-ever state championship.

""It's one of the happiest days of my life," Cox said after the game.

While the football team certainly grabbed the biggest headlines for Battlefield this year, the team's win was not the only state victory for the Bobcats in 2010. Swimmer Nick Tremols brought home an individual title in the 100 yard butterfly at states as he helped guide the Bobcat boys to a 13th-place finish overall. He competed in three events at the final meet of the season and later earned a spot on the NCSA All-Star Swim Team, which competed in Ireland during the spring. As a whole, the Bobcats won its first-ever district title and came in third place in regions.

Wrestlers Matt Bowman and Tevin Cooke also made state appearances for Battlefield along with a slew of golfers. Brendan Pastor stood out as the only Bobcat boy to make the finals, where he placed 25th, while Khushboo Thiagaraj provided a surprise finish for the Bobcats on the girls side by ending up tied for fifth place. Her senior sister Karishma held the next best BHS score at 153, 8 strokes behind the sophomore.

Battlefield's cheerleading squad also earned its third trip to the VCU Siegel Center after winning districts and coming in fourth at regions. The Bobcats ended up 15th overall.

Cross country runners Haben Zemichael and Nicole Carter both qualified for the big dance in the fall while Byron Sintim (long jump), Johanna Dominick (high jump) and Nathan Moyer (800 meter run) each posted top-10 finishes in Richmond in the outdoor track state finals. Sintim did the same earlier in the year during the indoor season.

At other times in 2010, Battlefield found all sorts of success. Battlefield's boys soccer team made a name for itself in a profound fashion, winning three titles en route to a second-place finish at states. After winning the regular season Cedar Run district title, all-state freshman Kyle Beach helped the Bobcats clinch the district tournament too with a game-winning goal as less than a minute remained in the game against Heritage decided by a 1-0 score.

The Bobcats topped off Patrick Henry 2-1 in the regional final before Adam Clements saved the season for Battlefield with two second-half goals against McLean to force overtime in the state quarterfinals. Goal keeper Jack Eaton and the Battlefield strikers took care of business during the do-or-die penalty kick standoff by a 4-1 margin.

With even Gov. Bob McDonnell in the stands cheering against Battlefield in semi-finals against Deep Run (his sons played for the Wildcats), the Bobcats cruised to a 3-0 victory before facing off against Cox in the finals. Clements attempted to provide heroics like he did against McLean with a second half goal off of a punt by Eaton. Despite hard kicks that went either over or to the sides of the irons, Battlefield just couldn't get one solid shot on net as Cox won 2-1 in Chantilly in the finals. Regardless, BHS coach Ott Pimsaen still earned statewide Coach of the Year honors.

Battlefield's gymnastics team meanwhile seemingly came out of nowhere to come within 1.3 points of Kellam in the state championship. The Bobcats' set a school record with a score of 149.8 points and even temporarily held a small lead at the end of two rotations.

Senior Erin Turner came as close to perfect as reasonably possibly, scoring a 38.2 out of 40 possible points through four events in her final competition for Battlefield following the school's first-ever regional title. Rising stars like Alex Fairbanks and Brianna Artz, who are back for the 2010-11 season, each brought home scores well over 9.0 in individual events while senior Mandy Brown capped her BHS career with an all-around performance that included an 9.35 score on the uneven bars.

In all, the spring season turned out to be the most successful for the Battlefield sports department. Five teams ended up in the Northwest regional tournament, including Cedar Run District champions in softball and boys soccer. The girls soccer and boys and girls lacrosse teams all finished in second place behind Loudoun Valley.

Battlefield's field hockey team also made it to regions after finishing second in the district behind Osbourn and the boys basketball team returned to regions as well, this time as the Cedar Run District regular season champion, a first for the program.

Brentsville

While Battlefield's football team overcame the underdog stigma due to losing two games during the regular season, the Brentsville District boys swimming team had the same label for technical reasons.

How could the Tigers actually win at states when it couldn't compete in any diving events? It wasn't due to a lack of ability; the Tigers simply don't have an adequate training facility for a diving team.

Then, Snowmaggedon robbed the Evergreen District champions from even competing in the Region II finals. How can a team build up momentum into the finals without first competing against a hard-nose opponent that would test its ability to respond under pressure.

Add in a bunch of other issues too: not a single Brentsville team won a single state championship in 2009, the first time Brentsville went a full calendar year without a statewide team victory since 1992. On top of that, Brentsville had a rookie coach in Ashleigh Krzywicki, none of the boys won an individual event and only two seniors on the 10-man roster competed at states.

So how did they do it?

Credit Krzywicki with sticking the right swimmers in the right events and credit those swimmers with making sure every one of their laps counted for something.

Ryan Dunne ended up being part of four top-three teams. He did it twice as an individual in the 50 yard freestyle (second place) and 200 yard freestyle (third place) and twice as part of a relay squads. The third-place 200 yard freestyle team also included Nathan Brown, Ben Cumberland and Tim Rackowski while the second-place 400 yard freestyle team also featured Brown, Jacob Katuin and Michael Hughes.

Hughes, Rackowski, Katuin and Jules Coy snagged the fifth top-three finish for Brentsville in the 200 yard medley relay.

When all the numbers came in, Brentsville's depth chart prevailed: the boys topped Hidden Valley 206-201 for the Group AA crown. Given that only two of the team's state competitors graduated, Brentsville has even more reason to expect success in the 2010-11 season.

"I still think we're going to be a very strong team next year and I hope for a repeat," Kryzwicki said after her boys brought home the gold.

Brentsville did not limit its aquatic success to just the boys, however. While none of the boys brought back an individual gold, junior Nicole Haynes did. Her time of 58. 12 seconds in the 100 yard backstroke secured the top spot in that event for the girls team that finished in eleventh place overall with 64 points, a six-spot improvement over the 2009 season.

Haynes also helped the girls set a team record at states as she combined with Annalee Gallagher, Britany Higdon and Emily Goodrich for an eighth-place finish in the 200 yard freestyle.

A handful of Tigers earned top-10 spots at states during the indoor track and field season, including Mystique Ro (300 meter dash), Rachel Reynolds (500 meter dash), Corey Scott (1,000 meter run), Morgan Price (3,200 meter run) and the boys 4x800 meter relay team of Scott, Zach Morrow, Chris Cunningham and Sam Gorham.

The sophomore Ro followed up in the outdoor season with a fifth place finish in the 300 meter hurdles and joined a uniquely young squad of all freshmen and sophomore runners in the 4x100 meter relay to secure sixth place in that event alongside Amber Cowthran, Denise Cruz and Crystal Hunt. The 4x800 meter squad, with upperclassmen Price, Caitlin Hoffman and Jessica Gausman running alongside the freshman Reynolds also earned the same spot.

Meanwhile, Scott clocked in a top-10 finish for the boys in the 800 meter run before teaming up with Morrow, Gabe Lassiter and Chris Sherrill on the 4x800 meter relay team, which came in sixth overall.

Brentsville's cross country program did not turn in its usual dominance this year as at least one team between the girls and boys usually does as neither squad captured a district, regional or state title. However, the Tiger girls still did end up in sixth place overall at states, with Price leading the way with a time of 19:25, 18 seconds in front of teammate Jill Marianos. Kenzie Fennell, Myra Kinder, Gillian Lowe, Taylor Fox and Lauren Colletti rounded out Brentsville's seven-member state roster.

Only one other Brentsville team made an appearance at states in 2010, the always-entertaining baseball team known for mounting late-inning comebacks in dramatic fashion. This year's squad turned out to be no exception to the thrill-at-all-cost style of play developed by the Tigers during the last four seasons.

While the Tigers ended up on the wrong side of a 16-0 slaughter in the state quarterfinals against Poquoson, the Evergreen District champions and Region II runner-up used a litany of show-stoppers to clinch victory from the jaws of defeat during the regular season. Zack Stronko clubbed a go-ahead grand slam against Fauquier in the bottom of the sixth inning in Nokesville to secure first place for the Tigers following a 5-3 win.

Earlier in the season, Brentsville showcased such comeback skills by climbed out of a 6-2 hole to beat Kettle Run 10-7, scoring five runs in one inning.

The baseball team was one of seven Tiger teams during the spring season to make it regions. That list included six district winners: baseball, softball, boys and girls lacrosse and boys and girls soccer. Brentsville's boys tennis team also earned a berth to the Region II tournament. The girls basketball team did the same earlier in the year.

On the wrestling mat, Wade Swede, JD Ratliff and Seth Henson combined by 129 wins, 58 of which came by pins. All three earned berths to states and finished in the top eight for their weight classes, including third place for Swede (160 pounds), fourth for Henson (130) and eighth for Ratliff (285).