The coaches would probably say qualifying for the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference playoffs is the main goal each year for the Severn and St. Mary’s boys lacrosse teams.

Earning a win against their archrival would probably be a close second.

Dylan Gergar scored five goals to lead Severn to a 13-6 victory over host St. Mary’s on Thursday night in the annual late-season clash between the rivals. The win left the Admirals with an outside shot of qualifying for the postseason, but also salvaged what has been a frustrating season of close conference losses.

“If you look at the wins and losses, it really doesn’t reflect on how much this team has grown,” Severn coach Jamie McNealey said. “This is a testament to those guys who come to practice every day, and you can see they’re into it.”

Severn had lost seven in a row, including its first six games in the conference, before knocking off Mount St. Joseph on Tuesday. Three of those losses were by three goals or less, including a one-goal loss to Loyola.

“Losing seven games in a row would knock a lot of teams down, but these guys love each other,” McNealey said. “They keep playing hard and they’re getting better every day.”

Severn (11-8) led by two at the half and increased the lead to four three minutes into the second half. After the Saints’ Alex Wicks cut the lead to three, Severn scored three goals in a 1 minute, 21 second span to make it a 9-3 game. Ben Bedard, who finished with two goals and three assists, started the run when he fired a high shot that just got in. Zack Kinsella followed with a goal 12 seconds later, then Gergar scored at the 3:55 mark of the third to make it a 9-3 game. B.J. Burlace stopped the run two minutes later, but the Saints (12-6) didn’t get closer than five goals the rest of the way.

Severn, which has defeated St. Mary’s two straight years, will look to close the season with a third straight win when it faces Archbishop Spalding on Tuesday.

Andrew Volk had two goals and an assist, Mike Lamon had two goals and Charlie Olmert had a goal and two assists for the Admirals. Goalie Stephen Miller, who McNealey felt had his best game by far, finished with eight saves, including some key stops in the first half while the game was still tight.

Softball

North East 10, Fallston 3: Eileen Scheir (2-for-3) had a home run, two RBIs and a run scored, but the visiting Cougars (6-13) fell to the Indians (8-11) in a Class 2A East Section I quarterfinal. North East travels to Harford Tech for Monday’s section semifinal.

Postponements

Because of inclement weather, most of Thursday’s section quarterfinals for baseball and softball were postponed to today. In the event of more bad weather, the games will be made up next week on consecutive dates.

Track and field

Anne Arundel County Championship: Most of the time it’s nearly impossible to see Old Mill’s Breanna Mealer not moving at a track meet.

Whether it’s scampering from one to jump to the other while mixing the hurdles in, going to retrieve a shovel for the long jump pit crew prior to her last jump with the title already in the bag or just happily skipping and dancing around while waiting to compete.

That positive energy and outlook has propelled her to unparalleled success as she won four individual events for the second year in a row, the first person in county history ever to complete the feat while only four others have ever done it once, capturing the high jump, long jump, 100 meter hurdles, and thanks to a scoring correction from yesterday, the triple jump.

“When you are negative nothing good can come out of negativity. I just try to keep it positive, even if people around me are negative. I don’t dwell on it,” Mealer said. “When I was high jumping, I was stressing about my approach. But I have no reason to stress. I have great coaching, a great team, great parents, great everything. So why should I stress about anything and just be happy that I’m out here and I can do the things I can do?”

Her 40 points combined with the 400 meter relay team’s win, Shanika Royal’s win in the 200 and a four silver medal day from Diamond Moore helped the Patriots repeat as county champions, narrowly defeating Severna Park 141-135.

“We were nervous going into it because we had a chance to compete but we knew we were going to have to be almost perfect,” Old Mill sprinters coach Keith Smith said. “We knew would have to have a couple of things go in our favor and by the grace of God they did.”

Severna Park’s boys won their first county outdoor track title, defeating host Northeast 127-115 but it wasn’t always easy as they went back and forth with the Eagles throughout the meet’s two days. Jonah Lane, who finished a disappointing fourth in the 3200 last night, came out seeking to redeem himself and did so and more, kicking with 400 meters to go and holding on in the 1600 and digging deep to win the 800 ahead of teammate Christian Isham.

—Ryan Morse

Baltimore Sun Media Group

Baltimore Sun staff contributed to this article.