Before Eastern Tech defeated Lansdowne, 7-5, in the Baltimore County softball championship game Tuesday, nobody had to remind the Eastern Tech players what happened the last time the Mavericks played Lansdowne in a postseason game.

That was in the Class 2A North Region championship game May 15, when the Vikings beat them, 5-3, to end the Mavericks' unbeaten season.

No. 1 Eastern Tech (16-1) led from start to finish against the No. 6 Vikings (14-3) and won its sixth straight county title in a game played at CCBC-Dundalk.

Senior third baseman Sara Ciekot led the Mavericks offense with three hits and two runs scored, and used last year's playoff loss as motivation.

“It was a big letdown,” said Ciekot, who hit a two-run triple to right-center field in her first at-bat. “After the big letdown last year we really came out and had to pick up where we left off.”

The Mavericks put the pressure on with four runs in the bottom of the first.

Sarah Cox was hit by a pitch and advanced to second on Brooke Retkowski's walk. Sarah Heagy reached on an error to load the bases and Allison Meyers drove in Cox with a sacrifice fly that preceded Ciekot's triple. Ciekot then scored on a wild pitch.

“We just really like to come out intense and we always say, ‘Attack first and get up on them so we have a little bit of breathing room so we can all relax,'?” Ciekot said.

Lansdowne pitcher Jordyn Goodman struck out the final two hitters of the first inning and the first one in a scoreless second inning, but the Mavericks expanded the lead to 6-0 in the third.

Ciekot was right in the middle of the rally again with a one-out double to right-center. Heagy, who led off with a single, and Ciekot scored on Casey Turner's single to right field.

Lansdowne finally got onto the board against sophomore pitcher Jodie Bronushas (seven innings pitched, nine hits, five strikeouts) in the fifth inning when freshman Tatum Barrass (3-for-4) hit a one-out double, advanced to third on a missed cutoff throw and scored on an infield tapper by Emily Wilkens (2-for-3).

The Mavericks got the run back in the bottom of the fifth inning when Meyers hit a home run for a 7-1 lead.

Goodman retired six of the final eight batters in the next two innings, the final two on strikeouts. She yielded nine hits and walked one, but wasn't helped by four Lansdowne errors.

“Even one error against a good team, you are going to be in a losing column,” said Lansdowne senior catcher Hannah Goodman, Jordyn's older sister. “It's hard to make four errors against a team like this and still think you are going to win.”

Hannah Goodman (3-for-4) drove in two runs with a ground double down the third-base line and Wilkens scored on a sacrifice fly by Jordyn Goodman to make it 7-4 in the seventh. Lansdowne pulled within two runs on an error, but Bronushas got a strikeout to end the game.