Basketball takes more than just passing and dribbling for true success. It takes skill as a team, skill as a player, and skill earned from years of dedication. Each is extremely important for every victory earned, and each can be seen in the stunning successes of FHC’s girls and boys basketball teams.
Senior Wyat Dwyer has been playing basketball since he was in kindergarten, but one extraordinary victory created Dwyer’s most memorable game, at least for the 2026 year.
“Beating St. Dominic in the district game was most memorable, because it hasn’t happened to our school in 20 years,” said Dwyer.
The FHC team beat St. Dominic at the Mar. 7 game with a score of 54-50, and the crowd’s cheers echoed through the gymnasium because it was such a close game. But, this is not the only historical success. According to senior Xavier Morrison, his team had a more notable and significant win to claim.
“We’ve won conference and district, and that hasn’t been done in 25 years,” said Morrison.
Despite the years of experience and respect both Dwyer and Morrison have earned over the years, Dwyer credits the skills of the team as a whole and his connection to its members for the 25-5 season record.
“I’ve been playing with a lot of these kids since sixth grade,” Dwyer said. “That brotherhood we have makes everything flow really well on the court.”
Like the FHC boys varsity team have achieved many victories this season, members of the FHC girls varsity team have also earned remarkable achievements and seen appreciable personal growth.
“[I got] all tournament team at the Washington tournament,” said Junior Jayla Robinson, “and I got an award at our Liberty Game.”
Earning the all-tournament team award means that all of the coaches who watched Robinson play believed that she is a stand-out athlete, and they would choose her when making the perfect girls basketball team, which consisted only of athletes from the high school teams in the tournament. Despite having a team consisting mainly of freshmen, the FHC girls varsity team’s resilience helped them rise up and beat a potent rival: Francis Howell North.
“We knew North had come in having a lot of confidence, because they played some really good teams, like Howell. We knew we had to come in and play really hard, and I feel like we did,” said junior Mikaela Bond.
During the 2024 to 2025 season, the FHC girls varsity team had a record of 18-10. Despite having to rebuild team camaraderie with new members, they were able to earn a record of 17-11.
“I feel like we had a really good team last year, and then this year, it was like, ‘Oh, we lost a ton of our good girls,’ but it was really nice to prove other people wrong,” Bond said.
The losses, the wins, and the work taken to prove naysayers wrong are difficult challenges in any sport, not to mention for a student athlete. Yes, many athletes have natural talent, and yes, some teams are so perfectly in sync. However, both FHC varsity teams worked, trained, and made that chemistry. Thanks to these bonds, FHC was able to make novel records.
