The Scoreboard is a sports feature spotlighting the winners and losers, the champs and chumps, the highlights and lowlights, and anything in between, of sports in the D.C. area.

Top (Bull)Dog

The Georgetown Hoyas (17-0-3) have not lost in 20 games and enter the NCAA Division I tournament as a No. 1 seed after winning their third straight Big East title. Senior forward Caitlin Farrell and senior Arielle Schechtman have been named the Big East offensive player of the year and goalkeeper of the year, respectively. Farrell has 17 goals this season—she’s tied for fourth-highest in the nation.

Georgetown, ranked second in the country in the United Soccer Coaches poll, will host Central Connecticut State at the university’s Shaw Field on Saturday, Nov. 10 at noon.

The other top seeds in the 64-team tournament are defending champion Stanford, Atlantic Coast Conference champion Florida State, and North Carolina. The Tar Heels, ranked No. 3 in the United Soccer Coaches poll, will play Southwestern Athletic Conference champion Howard (12-6-0) in the first round.

Georgetown reached the NCAA semifinals in 2016 before losing to the eventual champions from the University of Southern California.

Limitless Potential

Frances Tiafoe is on the inevitable verge of a big breakthrough. The charismatic 20-year-old Hyattsville native with a playful smile and compelling childhood story has come close—he pushed Roger Federer to five sets in the first round at the U.S. Open last year; he reached the round of 32 at this year’s Wimbledon—but his career so far has been built on a steady flow of smaller milestones instead of a monumental surge at a major tournament.

This week, Tiafoe gets another chance to show off his potential. He is one of eight players (seven who have qualified plus one wild card) competing at the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan, Italy. The end-of-season tournament, which started on Nov. 6 and runs through Nov. 10, features the best 21-and-under players of the season.

“It’s what you work for to be in positions like this and playing in events like this,” Tiafoe told reporters Tuesday after winning his first match. “And, again, as I said, this week has been—like, everyone, all seven guys who got in, you know, for us it’s celebrating a good year, because obviously it was tough to get in here and it’s a huge honor to play in this event.“

Winning the Next Gen title would separate Tiafoe from his peers, says Frank Salazar, Tiafoe’s former coach at the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park.

This season, Tiafoe, ranked 40th in the world, claimed his first ATP World Tour title at the Delray Beach Open and reached the final of the Estoril Open in Portugal. His maiden ATP title in Florida made him the youngest American ATP champion since Andy Roddick won in Houston in 2002 at 19. According to the ATP, Tiafoe and fellow American Taylor Fritz, another player in this week’s Next Gen tournament, are on course to both finish the year within the top 50, which will be the first time that at least two Americans 21 and under have done so since 2003.

“He definitely has the ability to have a breakthrough tournament,” says Salazar. “I think he’ll be in the round of 16 or quarters of a Grand Slam. …It’s going to happen before you know it. You just don’t know when.”

Dark Knight

Ray Knight rarely hides his emotions. The former major league manager and Most Valuable Player of the 1986 World Series could be counted on to say exactly how he felt during MASN broadcasts, where he served as an analyst, especially after excruciating losses by the Nationals. His candor earned him many fans among the Nationals faithful.

But in mid-September, the network pulled Knight off its broadcast without any explanation. Earlier this week, Chelsea Janes of The Washington Post reported that Knight will not return to the broadcast booth next season after MASN declined to pick up his 2019 contract option. According to Janes, the decision was made after Knight, 65, got into a verbal altercation with a member of the MASN production team.

In January, misdemeanor assault-and-battery charges were dropped against Knight after a deal was reached between him and an unnamed 33-year-old male acquaintance. Knight was arrested in October after the two got into a fight at a home Knight rents in Fairfax County, police told The Post.