In regards to Sherando - and really, all of them - I suppose I was thinking in terms of more recently than 23 years ago. I honestly don’t think what I wrote is disingenuous. To have championship cred, by my definition, a team should have won at least one. Or at the very least, if they haven’t won one, acquitted themselves well whenever they’ve reached the championship game. Getting blown out in three of four appearances, including the two most recent, certainly doesn’t constitute cred. Others may view that differently, and that’s fine. Handley hasn’t played in a state championship game in twenty years; neither Liberty nor Kettle Run have ever played in one. Nor has Eastern View, for that matter, and Sherando’s win over the Cyclones came in 2015, a year that EV lost in the playoff’s second round. So, my “championship cred” indicator is flatlining for those teams, too. Handley does have pretty good cred, on second thought, but it certainly isn’t recent. The Judges’ list of wins this season just isn’t at all compelling, with the very tenuous exception of Millbrook. Compare Region C to Region D, where there is more championship cred in teams 3 through 8, in both the recent and distant past.
You’re probably right about no one beating Dinwiddie in 2013. I’m not so sure about Amherst in 2007, having seen the Lancers in a game they definitely had the potential to lose, had a bounce or two gone the other way (oh, that darn loose ball on the bad snap on Amherst’s only punt - it still haunts my nightmares). Salem had the ball with a first down at Amherst’s 40 yard line, only down 41-35 with about two minutes left. Salem had never been down by more than fourteen; most of the second half alternated between being tied, and a seven point Lancer lead. An interception and deep return that led to a TD in the final minute made the final 48-35. So, a little closer and substantially more competitive than 56-10 - acknowledging the loss of Metheny, even though I don’t think the ultimate outcome would have changed.
As I posted above, it’s hard for me to get past the playoff games with Sherando and Millbrook, just two and three years ago. Both had beaten most of the Winchester, Warren County, and Fauqier County teams, plus a few Loudoun County ones. Many of those wins were by significant margins. Both came into Salem Stadium, and both could have been beaten by whatever margin Coach Magenbauer wanted to name. Millbrook looked no better than the fifth or sixth place team in the River Ridge District, and Sherando didn’t look a whole lot better the next season.
For the record, I genuinely respect and admire Sherando’s program, moreso than any other in that part of the state. [And I’m not so much talking about Loudoun County, which is really “Northern Virginia”, as opposed to northwest Virginia.] It produces consistent winners, and seems to go about things the right way. As you noted, they do have some notable playoff wins - a team could hardly reach four title games without claiming a few scalps. I was there, that one time they beat Salem. A great atmosphere, and good people. However, I can’t honestly say I regard Sherando as one of Virginia’s elite programs. I’d probably classify them as being in whatever the class right below “elite” is called. I think they mostly benefit from being a big fish in one of the state’s smaller football ponds. That’s all in my very humble opinion, of course.
