Westminster field hockey thought it was playing a 60-minute game Saturday. Severna Park knew it was really playing four 15-minute games.

Falcons coach Shannon Garden hauled in a white board to every game and scribbled each incremental goal, so “as to not get overwhelmed with the whole game.” She stressed 50-50 balls, communication, passing, and so on.

“By the end of the first 15 minutes, I was able to cross them all off,” Garden said. “And that felt so good!”

Finally, Shannon Garden could take her stinky, sweaty Severna Park sweat set off.

As her players collapsed over each other on the cool Stevenson University turf, celebrating a 4-0 triumph in the Class 3A state championship game, Garden said, “I couldn’t wash the win off.”

The clothes were a hand-me-down from a former player, Ava Drexler-Amey — the same player who led Severna Park to its last title in 2021. Senior Sydney Day felt a similar connection to the previous, dominant group that won in 2019, too — her elder sister, Zoe, owns two state championship rings.

The true reason for Severna Park’s victory wasn’t mystically woven into stinky cotton, though.It would be difficult for anyone in the county to consider a Severna Park team an underdog, let alone when you learn they hold a state-record 26 titles and have made 32 appearances in the final. But in Anne Arundel County, with Crofton and Broadneck running the table these past two years, they were. To make matters worse, illness plagued the program early on this fall.

At the start of each game, Garden tells her players they have two minutes “to get an outcome.” They didn’t wait for two.

From the first minute, the Falcons drew corner upon corner, and by the third, senior Sydney Day found her path through. She collected a cross from Pope and drilled a hole behind Westminster keeper Natalie Schultz.

“I think it really puts a shock on the teams,” senior Ava Zimmerman said. “That’s what happened here, and they didn’t know what to do. So, we kept the pressure on.”

Only two corners later, senior midfielder Kelsey Rowe took a jab from Ava Zimmerman and swung at the net. The shot whistled just a hair off angle — which freshman Grace Redmond, who netted three goals in the Falcons’ victorious semifinal, recognized. She hooked a piece of it, and planted the goal firmly.

Toward the end of the first, Zimmerman threaded a ball toward the net when an Owl collided with her, earning the Falcons’ midfielder a penalty stroke.

Westminster struggled as the Falcons constricted them like a serpent. The Owls drew corners, thrashed, but nothing reached Camryn Lowman. Defenders cut every Westminster ball down without it so much as skimming the small yellow circle until the final eight minutes. The Owls launched a shot, drawing Lowman a step forward to kick it back and groans from the Carroll County side of the crowd.

“I’m fortunate I have athletes who, you say ‘go play right forward,’ and they go do that. This team is very special,” Garden said. “One of the few teams I’ve ever coached having all my [10] seniors on the field. I know, next year, I’ll be down some queens.”

Class 4A

Crofton 2, Broadneck 0: When Crofton shut out Broadneck in the Class 4A state semifinals last fall, all agreed that was the true championship game. Little did they know that not only would they get their dream matchup one year later, they’d finish with the same score.

As the horn sounded on the Cardinals’ 2-0 triumph Saturday at Stevenson University, Maryland-bound goalkeeper Ryleigh Osborne threw her mask aside and hugged every teammate she could. The defense that had so expertly staved off even the most dangerous Bruins scorers and held them without a goal for the first time all season. The offense that had spotted the littlest bit of daylight the defense afforded it and swung the door wide-open.

The 17 Crofton seniors had not ended a season without lifting a championship trophy since 2021 — one title in 3A (2022), and now two straight in the 4A — in four years as a varsity program. Though they’d dropped the first meeting with Broadneck by a goal on Sept. 10, they’d struck back in the county championship game. They’d scrapped through difficult region and state tournament foes.

There was no other way to leave Saturday but with gold medals slung around their necks.

“Going out with a loss was not an option,” said senior Olivia Feeley, who netted one goal and assisted Sophia Galarza’s.

Unlike Thursday’s state semifinal with Walt Whitman, Crofton’s offense struggled to sustain long possessions against Broadneck’s defense. But the Cardinals only really needed two good shots.

Feeley has become so accustomed to Jackie Kerner feeding her the ball that she already stood facing Kerner before the junior even received it. Kerner served Feeley her food, and Feeley tacked another goal to her 20-plus total for the season.

“We’ve been all playing together for 10 years,” Feeley said. “We know where each other’s going to be.”

Broadneck defenders Claire Imber and Grace Figueroa fended off the first two Crofton corners, but they just kept coming. On the third, Kerner rolled a pass Feeley’s way in the exact same spot of the circle. This time, the Bruins were ready: Figueroa lunged forward and flushed Feeley from her perch before she could try a shot. Feeley skated around the circle, Figueroa and Katelyn Kearns stalking her flanks. She couldn’t shake free, but she glanced at the far post, where Galarza awaited her to hook and shoot.

Osborne cheesed at her fellow senior afterward, thinking of all the times Galarza practiced that move at the exact spot.

“In!” In! In!” Galarza recalled, laughing. “I couldn’t miss it.”

Four minutes into the fourth, Kearns lined a shot toward the net most keepers would’ve let in. Osborne gravitated to it like a magnet, and kicked it back. For the next Broadneck shot sent her way, Osborne dropped into a ballerina’s split, blocked it, and popped back up as if it were nothing.

“They have one heck of a goalie,” Broadneck coach Shannon Hanratty said. “And I’m proud of my team.”

Class 2A

Manchester Valley 5, Glenelg 3: Sophie Baer said she and her Manchester Valley teammates never got over the heartbreak of making it to their first state final two years ago, only to get shut out by Glenelg. Nor did they forget the way the Howard County team throttled their offense in last year’s state semifinal.

“It’s been on our heads since that ending our sophomore year,” Baer said. “We decided, not a third time.”

So in another high-stakes playoff matchup yet again Saturday, the Carroll County power left nothing to chance.

Amanda Herrold scored the first of her two goals just 58 seconds in, and No. 4 Manchester Valley broke open a close game by scoring four straight and selling out defensively to slow record-setting senior Brinkley Eyre in a win over No. 3 Glenelg, the three-time defending state champion, in the Class 2A final at Stevenson University.

The win completed a perfect season for the Mavericks (17-0), who earned their first state title. It also exorcized a few recent demons.

“I think the difference is we’ve had some experience here for the past couple years,” Manchester Valley coach Denean Koontz said. “We’ve always had teams that work hard, but we’ve had this on the back of our minds for 363 days. We did prepare for each game, but we ultimately knew the angle, and [we] worked hard to achieve that every day.”

Tied at 1 early in the second quarter, Manchester Valley took the lead for good when freshman Lily Brookhart scored from close range on the back end of a penalty corner. That started a string of four straight goals for the Mavericks, who kept Glenelg — which entered the day averaging nearly 8 goals a game — off the board for a span of 52:29.

They did it primarily by blanketing Eyre, a Maryland-bound All-Metro midfielder who set the state’s single-season scoring record this season, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Though Eyre scored a pair of late goals to finish with 59 for the season, the Mavericks kept her from getting clear looks at the cage through most of the day by continually blanketing her with two and sometimes three defenders, particularly on penalty corners.

“They always had two or three girls on me at one time,” Eyre said. “I would hear ‘Mark 3 [her uniform number], mark 3. Get a double on her.’ It was always like I was just marked.”

All told, Manchester Valley turned away 18 straight penalty corners with its aggressive defense.

“Just get out fast, scare them and just try to get a stick on it,” senior Liz Szybalski said. “We watched a lot of game film and just noticed a trend in their corners.”

Baer and Szybalski each had a goal and assist, and senior Barbara Guest two assists for the Mavericks. Glenelg (16-3), whose only losses this season before Saturday had come at a national tournament, trailed 5-1 midway through the fourth quarter before coach Martie Dyer called a timeout in an attempt to light a fire under her team.

Eyre scored both of her goals in the final 5:16 of regulation — against a team that had outscored opponents 108-3 — but the clock soon ran out.

Freelancer Rich Scherr contributed to this article. Have a news tip? Contact Katherine Fominykh at kfominykh@baltsun.com or DM @capgazsports on Instagram.