Walk by Washington-Lee High School these days and there’s no getting around that the building remains a work in progress. While the school’s classrooms were completed in time for this school year, many non-essential items like an auditorium, adequate parking, and various athletic facilities like a pool, practice rooms and a weight room are still under construction.
The same could be said about Washington-Lee’s football team, which plays on the school’s brand new turf field, smack in the middle of its school’s renovation.
The Generals are underway on their own reconstruction, having gotten off to their best start since 2003, methodically transforming from perennial National District bottom feeder to legitimate contender within the Northern Region this year.
But as evidenced by last Friday’s 12-10 loss to Mount Vernon — a team that blew out Washington-Lee the past two seasons — the reclamation project remains in progress. The loss dropped the Generals to 2-3 on the season, but may help in the long run for the lessons it taught the developing program.
“We’ve found our foundation, we just got to finish and stop making some of these mistakes,” senior quarterback Charlie Fuller said. “We got to stay in the game mentally.”
Fuller was indirectly referring to a holding penalty that particularly bothered coach Josh Shapiro and negated a 64-yard touchdown run by Fuller in the first quarter.
Before the game, when asked what a 3-2 start would mean to his team and the program, Shapiro was quick to point out that in the past few years Washington-Lee had never even sniffed an above .500 record this late into the season.
After his team’s loss, Shapiro could only shake his head at how a win had slipped through his team’s fingers thanks to silly mistakes and a 25-yard touchdown run from Mount Vernon senior Brian Green late in the third quarter.
In the immediate aftermath, Shapiro wasn’t looking at things with a glass half full perspective, but even the disappointment in his voice is a good sign for a team looking to discard a losing culture.
“We left points out there,” Shapiro said. “It’s very frustrating. It was a good game. Mount Vernon played well, we just didn’t put enough points on the board.”
Aside from overcoming the mental block, Washington-Lee also lacks dynamic playmakers outside of Fuller. The senior quarterback just began taking snaps behind center two weeks ago in an effort to have the ball in his hands as much as possible.
And while Fuller was effective for the second week in a row against Mount Vernon — picking up 162 yards on the ground, including an 82-yard touchdown run — the Majors began assigning a spy on defense to follow Fuller in the second half. It didn’t help that the rainy conditions made passing a near-impossible task.
“He seemed like the whole offense in the first half,” said Green, who also plays safety for Mount Vernon and finished with more than 80 yards rushing and both Majors’ touchdowns. “We tried to contain him doing that.”
Added Shapiro: “We need to get (Charlie) some support. He’s trying to do it on his own. We can’t help without any other guys out there pulling their weight.”
School officials say the building at Washington-Lee should be fully completed by next September when classes begin for the 2008-09 school year. With winnable games against Falls Church and Wakefield the next two weeks, the Generals football revitalization may be complete even sooner.