Contributors: Bria Irizarry and Ryan Killen
Twitter: @daathletics
Instagram: @dacavsathletics
The final week of fall sports has wrapped up, and the Durham Academy Cavaliers remain in third place in the 4A division of the Wells Fargo Cup, which is presented to the independent schools that have the best overall interscholastic sports program at the end of the year in each of the four classifications: 1A, 2A, 3A and 4A.
In a fall season that was not guaranteed, three Cavaliers teams — field hockey, girls tennis and volleyball — earned a spot in the state semifinals; the girls golf team earned a state runner-up finish; and 24 Cavs were named All-Conference. DA will celebrate the fall season with a virtual version of the Fall Athletic Awards Event on Wednesday at 7 p.m. We will share information on how to join the livestream of the event later this week.
Cross-Country
DA boys cross-country took fourth place at the 2020 N.C. Independent Schools Athletic Association state championship meet on Saturday at Charlotte’s McAlpine Park. The team ran a close race with Covenant Day School but lost the tie-breaker to secure 84 total points, despite four out of seven Cavaliers running season-best times. Senior Jay Shanahan placed third overall with a time of 15:58, nearly 30 seconds faster than he ran the course last year at states. Senior Ryan Norris crossed the finish in 13th place at 16:49, and classmate Kabir Khwaja placed 19th with a time of 17:08, more than 30 seconds faster than last year. The Cavs finished with runners in 21st, 28th, 37th and 49th place.
DA girls cross-country took sixth place at the NCISAA meet. The team was led by ninth-grader Allison Hall, who crossed the finish at 19:00, in second place overall. Five DA runners completed the race with season-best times to score a total of 173 points, just behind Triangle Independent Schools Athletic Conference opponent Cary Academy, which scored 151 points. Senior Anna Catherine Wilson was the second runner to score for the Cavs, crossing the finish line at 19:30 and in seventh place overall. Senior Lucy Steiner finished in 25th place overall with a time of 20:49. The rest of the girls team placed 66th, 68th, 72nd and 75th.
Boys Soccer
DA’s boys soccer season came to end Friday night with a 1–0 defeat at the hands of Wesleyan Christian Academy in their state quarterfinals appearance. The Cavs gave it their best effort, but the final result did not fall their way. From the start of the first whistle, the Cavs went on the attack. Senior Charlie Robb had the Cavs’ best chance of the game in those first minutes as he snuck in behind the Wesleyan defense, but his shot was saved by the goalkeeper. Wesleyan started to get a better hold on the match toward the end of the first half. For about a 10-minute segment in the second half, the Cavs threw all they had at Wesleyan with shot after shot and corner kick after corner kick, but just couldn’t quite find the back of the net. Wesleyan played a high back line all night, almost tempting the Cavs to beat them in behind on a through ball, but other than the early breakaway from Robb, the Cavs just couldn’t quite find that decisive pass.
With about 10 minutes remaining in the game, Wesleyan started to go on the attack, and with a little over seven minutes remaining, they found the all-important first goal of the game. It came from a right-side cross along the ground, right into the path of an attacker who slotted the ball into the corner of the net, leaving no chance for senior goalkeeper Sam Datin to make a save. Datin did make a couple of incredible saves to keep the score level, but the one goal would be all Wesleyan needed to get the win. It was an unfortunate way to end the season in a game that could have gone either way. DA finished the year with a 6–3 record.
Volleyball
The Cavs had an outstanding performance on Friday night, defeating the Wake Christian Bulldogs 3–1 (28–26, 23–25, 27–25, 25–19) at home to advance to the state semifinal. However, DA volleyball saw its season come to a close on Tuesday night at Cannon School in the NCISAA state semifinal when the team lost its second match of the year 3–1 to the Cougars. The Cavs got off to a great start, going on a 9–1 run in the first set and eventually leading 10–5. After some monumental serves by sophomore Hannah Kohn, DA took the first set 25–19.
The Cougars matched the Cavs’ intensity, jumping out to an 11–5 advantage in the second set. DA could not recover from the early deficit and lost the second set 25–12. DA began the third set neck-and-neck with the Cougars. Sophomore Olivia Kohn had some offensive firepower on serve, but, again, the Cougars outscored the Cavaliers 25–14 to go down two sets to one. The fourth set was a battle for the lead between both teams, with the score tied up at 4, 9, 13 and 17 before Cannon eventually took the set 25–19 and the match 3–1.
DA volleyball ends the year with an 8–2 overall record and 6–1 conference record. Senior Elizabeth Kohn ends her DA career with a team-high 130 kills on the season, while junior Gabby Marchese finished with 20 serving aces and sophomore Hannah Kohn finished with 153 digs for the Cavs.
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. You can also import team schedules into your electronic calendars.
- 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.