By Bria Irizarry
Twitter: @daathletics
Instagram: @dacavsathletics
The final week of the fall 2021 sports season wrapped up last week for Durham Academy with state runner-up finishes from boys cross-country and volleyball and a fourth-place finish from girls cross-country. And just the week prior, girls golf also earned a runner-up finish.
On Friday morning, the boys cross-country team was led by ninth-grader Ben Hornstein (16:18) and senior Stewart Roessler (16:25), who came in seventh and eighth place overall in the North Carolina Independent School Athletics Association (NCISAA) state championship. Sanju Patel, the next Cav to cross the finish line, took 17th place with a time of 16:48. The team continued to score runners in 21st, 22nd, 27th and 38th to secure a second-place finish behind a strong Christ School team that scored the first three runners over the finish line. Eighth-grader Audrey Crowder (18:56) set the tone for the girls cross-country team as she finished in sixth place overall in the state meet. She was followed by sophomore Allison Hall (21:26) and ninth-grader Anna Tricomi (21:38), who finished in 33rd and 34th, respectively. The Cavs came across the line in 48th, 50th, 82nd and 83rd to put the stamp on their fourth-place finish.
On Saturday, DA volleyball traveled to North Raleigh Christian Academy to face the defending state champion Knights. The Cavs came out ready to play and proved they had offensive power in the first set, but lost 25–20. The Knights countered in the second set, jumping out to a six-point lead. DA was not able to recover, eventually dropping the set 25–13. NRCA rode the momentum into the third set, defeating DA 25–11 to take the title and put an end to the Cavs’ 17–4 season.
The fall sports teams had a chance to celebrate their success on Tuesday night in Horton Hall at the annual awards assembly. DA had three teams — boys cross-country, girls golf and volleyball — earn state runner-up finishes, and two teams make state semifinal appearances — boys soccer and girls tennis. Boys cross-country, girls golf, boys soccer and girls tennis also earned the title of Triangle Independent School Athletics Conference (TISAC) champions.
On Tuesday night, student-athletes were also recognized for their individual accomplishments:
- 24 All-Conference selections
- Two TISAC Players of the Year — eighth-grader Audrey Crowder of girls cross-country and senior Diego Pastor-Valverde of boys soccer
- Seven NCISAA All-State selections
Durham Academy remains in fifth place in the 4A division of the Wells Fargo Cup, which is presented to the independent schools with the best overall interscholastic sports program at the end of the year in each of the four classifications: 1A, 2A, 3A and 4A. As of now, the Cavs are ranked ahead of all other TISAC schools.
Keeping Up with the Cavs
As always, you can keep up with the Cavs on Durham Academy’s website and the Durham Academy App (available on the Apple App Store).
- For a list of all teams, their schedules and directions to games, visit www.da.org/teams.
- Click on an individual team to subscribe to automatic alerts about athletics results, postponements and cancellations, calendar and athletic event reminders.
- All information about the daily athletics schedule is also available on DA’s Athletics Hotline: 919-489-2534 (ext. 5).
The DA App: Schedules and Results
- The DA App allows you to keep up with athletics wherever you are. You can download the app from iTunes at http://bit.ly/DACavaliers. The DA App pulls athletics content directly from the DA website and delivers it to iOS-based devices including iPhone and iPad.
- The Athletics portion of the DA App (after launching, click Menu, then click Athletics to open) features results of recent games, a list of upcoming contests and team records.