COLLEGE PARK — There was one ultimate weapon South River girls basketball had in its arsenal that so few opponents could counter: Depth.

In the final moments of Friday’s Class 3A state championship game, Oakland Mills’ starters battled for just a piece of the basketball, each exhausted by 30 minutes of ruthless play. The Scorpions lead after three quarters, but as the final seconds bled away, they were just the latest team on the losing end of a South River scoring rampage and a 56-45 score, facing five Seahawks who didn’t touch the floor until the final 42 seconds.

“We’re able to go on a 16-0 run in the fourth quarter because we’re just getting nonstop fresh legs. [Oakland Mills] ran out of gas,” South River coach Mike Zivic said. “Depth was our game plan all year, [though] it took a while. Thought it’d work a little sooner.”

The remaining eight Seahawks, all of whom contributed to a dramatic fourth-quarter rally in some way, readied to rush the floor. Two seconds before the final buzzer blare, they couldn’t wait any longer – sophomore Cami Burke breached the line, and a sea of Columbia blue streamed onto the Xfinity Center court, history in their hands. Hundreds of blue pom-poms fluttered in the stands, held by parents and 190 cheering South River athletes that rode five buses to watch history happen.

“It was extremely bittersweet,” Raegan Ogle, one of nine seniors, said. “But we went out the best way we could have.”

The Seahawks (22-6) were state contenders a year ago, but were ravaged by a rash of ACL tears. Kiera West was one of them. The junior rained 22 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in her final game of her comeback season, exploding in the fourth quarter to hit 50% from the field.

Since the injury that stole nine months of basketball from her, West had been waiting to do something like this.

“To come back to this?” she said. “It’s amazing.”

Then-juniors Skylar Woodyard and Karlee Hawkins held the team down and led them to the county title, though they were eliminated in the regional final. This year, as South River squashed every county and region team it faced, Woodyard felt relief.

“All the work from last year paid off,” she said.

But a question always lingered.

The Seahawks were clearly superior to most opponents, posting double-digit victories night after night. But when the Seahawks battled private schools and other elite out-of-county teams in December and January, they fell. What happened when South River danced with an opponent that could match it was left unanswered through the region championships and Class 3A state quarterfinal.

Such an equal finally met South River again on the championship stage.

Everything that was just so on-brand Seahawks was denied or co-opted by the Scorpions through three quarters. Second-chance points? Picks? Oakland Mills was all over it. Lead-carving 3-pointers? They had no trouble knocking those down. In the third quarter alone, the Scorpions shot 42.9% from the perimeter. South River shot 16.7%.

The South River that dominated teams on every inch of the floor was tied with a mirror image through a quarter and trailing after another two.

Not one Seahawk considered defeat a possibility.

“It was now or never,” Hawkins said.

South River was simply playing the long game against a team with fewer options, thought Ogle. She darted to the basket to score twice and dish to senior Sami Clarke for the go-ahead basket. West wove her buckets between Ogle’s, leaving the Scorpions in the dust of her nine points. South River drilled 21 points in the fourth quarter, but against its man defense, Oakland Mills mustered five.

“When we did that, it turned something up,” Zivic said.

In the end, Zivic marveled at what his program did. They suffered so much over the past few years, but the pressure molded them into diamonds.

“To be able to be here and watch them mature and grow is just amazing,” he said. “It’s just a blessing to be able to share it with them.”

SOUTH RIVER – 11 10 14 21 – 56

OAKLAND MILLS – 11 16 13 5 –45

SR: Kiera West 22, Raegan Ogle 8, Cami Burke 8, Skylar Woodyard 6, Karlee Hawkins 5, Sami Clarke 4, Ryleigh Adams 3

OM: Chloe Grenway 12, Destiny Macharia 10, Jeriah Shipp 8, Adey Alexander 7, Heaven Alexander 6, Mia Wellington 2

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