Big News! Bishop Ireton is proud to announce our first-ever girls ice hockey team for the 2025-2026 school year! Ready to make history on the ice? Reach out to Head Coach Stephen Gerke (stephen.gerke@bsihopireton.org) or Athletic Director Dwayne Bryant (dwayne.bryant@60654a.com) with any questions.
The Washington Catholic Athletic Conference all-conference and VISAA all-state spring awards are in! Congratulations to these athletes on their well-deserved recognition and to all of our spring Cardinals on their hard work and dedication to BI athletics.
Bishop Ireton is excited to announce the hiring of two new varsity coaches to the Bishop Ireton Athletic program. The Cardinals welcome Catherine Cocolis as the Head Varsity Cheerleading Coach and Stephen Gerke (BI ‘14) as the Head Varsity Ice Hockey Coach.
For the first time in school history, Bishop Ireton Boys Tennis has taken home the team WCAC Championship! They defeated Gonzaga, St. John's and DeMatha in the semifinals and finals to claim the top prize. Singles winners for BI included: Ben Phelps - Singles #4, Val Schroeder - Singles #5 and Paul Khalil - Singles #6. Doubles winners included: Drex Reider & Matt Antonio #2 and Ben Phelps & Dmitry Schroeder #3. The WCAC Championship follows the most dominant season in school history with only a single loss (a close, early-season defeat to St. John's). This week, the cardinals compete in the VISAA state tournament, where they are seeded #3 headed into the playoffs! Congratulations Cardinal Tennis!
The Washington Catholic Athletic Conference all-conference winter awards are in! Congratulations to these athletes on their well-deserved recognition and to all of our winter Cardinals on their hard work and dedication to BI athletics.
As Cardinal athletics continues to make strides in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference (WCAC) and Virginia Independent School Athletic Association (VISAA) conferences, two winter head coaches have been recognized for their outstanding contributions to their respective sports.
Coach Kesha Walton was awarded both the WCAC and VISAA Coach of the Year awards for girls basketball. Under Coach Walton, the girls team continued their dominance in the 2023-2024 season. After a winning regular season, the team had a tough loss in the semi-finals of the WCAC championship. They then went on to win the programs first State title, defeating PVI 56-52 in the VISAA finals.
Coach Kaitlyn Gerke earned her second consecutive VISAA Coach of the Year award for girls swim. This comes off a season where both the boys and girls team saw great regular and championship season success. The boys diving team finished 1st overall in the WCAC Championship and both the boys and girls team finished 3rd.
For a long, long time, Paul VI dominated the Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association Division I girls’ basketball bracket. Year after year, the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference powerhouse would wrap up its conference season and then spend a week pummeling VISAA opponents en route to a state title. Last year’s championship was the 16th in a row for the Panthers.
But this winter, a serious challenger emerged. Bishop Ireton entered the VISAA tournament after a breakout campaign in the WCAC. And on Saturday afternoon at Benedictine College Prep in Richmond, the Cardinals capped their uplifting season with an achievement to remember.
Ireton ended Paul VI’s reign of state tournament dominance with a 56-52 win in the VISAA Division I title game. The victory secured the first state title in program history.
“We really didn’t talk about their streak at all before this game. We wanted to focus on us,” Cardinals Coach Kesha Walton said. “We wanted to play our best basketball and let everything else take care of itself.”
The Panthers (19-15) and Cardinals (24-9) earned the top two seeds in the bracket and played their VISAA quarterfinals three days after getting bounced from the WCAC tournament in the semifinals. In Saturday’s final, the teams looked plenty familiar and well matched, trading baskets for much of the first half. The Panthers led by one at halftime and held that slim advantage after the third quarter.
The Cardinals made their move midway through the fourth, tying the score at 46 and then pulling ahead on a 6-0 solo run by junior forward Nyla Brooks. They would never trail again.
“I had been focused on defense and rebounding to that point,” Brooks said. “But I knew that fourth quarter was crucial, and I wanted to do whatever I could to help us close out the game.”
Brooks led the Cardinals with 17 points, followed by guards Amirah Anderson and Saniyah King with 14 apiece.
“It was our last game together, no matter what,” Brooks said. “We prepared really well and just enjoyed playing together.”
ALEXANDRIA, VA - February 12, 2024 - Bishop Ireton is excited to announce the hiring of a new varsity head football coach. The Cardinals welcome Bernard Joseph to the BI Athletic family.
Coach Joseph has more than three decades of football coaching experience including serving as the head football coach at McNamara, another WCAC school, in the early 2000s. Most recently, Coach Joseph was the head football coach at St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes where he led the most successful 10-year run in recent history between 2011 and 2021. In his final season, he guided the team to a 7-3 record and an appearance in the competitive Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association (VISAA) playoff.