Manchester Valley girls lacrosse coach Shelly Brezicki didn't put much emphasis on the Mavericks' final regular-season game against Roland Park.
Last year, the Mavericks had only one loss — to the Reds, 15-13. Brezicki thought her team played well and lessons from the game helped the Mavericks go on to win the Class 2A-1A title, their first state lacrosse championship.
The players, however, put a lot of emphasis on the game and it showed as they took an early four-goal lead on their home field and broke away with a four-goal spurt early in the second half to beat the No. 4 Reds, 23-11. The win boosted their record to 14-0 heading into the playoffs.
Senior attacker Allie Little had seven goals and three assists and junior midfielder Lizzie Colson added six goals and three assists as the No. 5 Mavericks used their superior speed and quick offensive connections to dominate the No. 4 Reds (10-5) in the second half.
"A lot of public schools don't really get to go against private schools, so it's kind of a big deal that we even get to play them let alone be able to beat them," Little said. "Last year, we came out and we were kind of slow and then the score ended up being close, but this year, we really brought it at them and I think we just did great."
The Carroll County champion Mavericks had 10 assisted goals while the Reds, who were within three early in the second half, had just one.
"Our team just works well together," Little said. "Overall we work off of each other, so one person does something good and that motivates everyone else and we work with feeding. That's big on our team. We trust each other to get the passes through."
Little scored the first goal of the game, but the Reds answered with back-to-back goals from Francesca Whitehurst and Anna Hauser. Beanie Colson then tied it for the Mavericks to kick-start a five-goal run for a 6-2 lead.
The Reds cut the margin to 7-5 with 3:34 left in the first half, but Lizzie Colson converted two Roland Park turnovers, the first with a goal and the second with a feed to Kira Mitchell.
After Lizzie Colson scored again to open the second half, Whitehurst, who led the Reds with four goals, and Hauser again scored consecutive goals to cut the lead to 10-7. Little then answered with two goals and an assist in a four-goal Mavericks run that took less than two minutes and extended Manchester Valley's lead to 14-7 with 19:09 to go.
The Mavericks finished the game with a 13-4 run and took a 10-goal lead to kick in the running clock with 5:20 left.
"They were fast — and faster than what we're used to," said Roland Park coach Kristin Nicolini, "and they were fast all the time. They push it. They get back quick. They really work hard and typically we do, but we didn't today."
Both teams move on to the playoffs next. The Reds are seeded second behind No 1 McDonogh — the only area undefeated team besides Manchester Valley — in the Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference tournament and begin play Tuesday.
The Mavericks find out who they play next when the sectional playoff seedings are announced Monday. Finishing the regular season with such a dominating victory gives them a tremendous springboard into the postseason.
"It's definitely a big game," Lizzie Colson said. "You always want to go into the playoffs on a good note and I think we did that tonight. It gave us some confidence going into playoffs. We realized how good we were tonight."
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