By the time Monday's girls lacrosse sectional finals ended, two defending state champions and the highest ranked public school team in The Baltimore Sun's Top 15 had been eliminated from the playoffs.
No. 7 Glenelg upset No. 2 Marriotts Ridge, 11-7, in Class 3A-2A South Section I. Unranked Broadneck upset No. 5 and defending champion Severna Park, 12-11, in Class 4A-3A East Section I.
Last week, 2015 Class 3A-2A champion Century fell to North Carroll, 12-11, in the 2A-1A West Section I semifinal.
Marriotts Ridge, Severna Park and Century had combined to win 16 state championships in the past 10 years. The only defending champion still alive is two-time Class 2A-1A champ and No. 3 Manchester Valley, which defeated North Carroll, 14-9, in Monday night's West Section I final.
Only five teams that have won state championships in the past 10 years moved on to the regional finals and they've combined for just seven titles during that stretch – Manchester Valley, Glenelg, Broadneck, Dulaney and Fallston.
Winters Mill coach Courtney Vaughn, who is retiring after 30 years, isn't surprised by the sectional results.
"We played both Glenelg and Marriotts Ridge and they were both tough. I thought that game could go either way," Vaughn said. "With North Carroll and Century it was within a goal when they played the first time. If you have a couple of good players on your team, you can put up such a good game plan using those few players."
Vaughn also pointed to the emotional charge behind North Carroll's win over Century with the Panthers playing their final games before the school closes.
The regular-season meetings between the teams involved in the upsets weren't decided by many goals. Marriotts Ridge defeated Glenelg, 9-7. Century defeated North Carroll 10-9. Severna Park defeated Broadneck 9-7.
Vaughn and Glenelg coach Ginger Kincaid, in her 29th season with the Gladiators, said they've never seen so many top contenders fall so early in the playoffs. Still, they don't consider those three games to be true upsets.
"Every kid on the high-level varsity teams is playing on a high level club team and they're all committed [to college] somewhere," Kincaid said. "I can go down my team and the top three or four teams in Howard County and almost every kid is going to play in college somewhere. You're starting to see it becoming, across the board, equal whereas before you'd have one team that would have it all and the others wouldn't."
Another big factor in Anne Arundel and Howard counties, Kincaid said, has been the tiered leagues that pit the stronger teams in each county against each other and the weaker teams against each other. That kept the competition high throughout the season for teams in both counties.
"We were able to play top-level competition the whole season," Kincaid said, "so teams were able to grow instead of play a real tough team and then win by 30, play a real tough team and then win by 30, so my season has been every game a battle. In our area, I'm pretty sure that played a big part because there was no runaway. Marriotts Ridge won all its county games, but it didn't win by more than two [against the top teams]."
The question now is whether the team that emerges from the historically dominant regions will still win the state titles – Class 4A-3A East with Broadneck or Leonardtown; Class 3A-2A with Glenelg or Atholton; and Class 2A-1A West with Manchester Valley or Walkersville.
The regional championships are scheduled for Wednesday with the state semifinals on Friday and Saturday.
Of course, several other local teams are still in the running – Howard and Catonsville in 4A-3A, Hereford and C. Milton Wright in Class 3A-2A, and Southern, Pikesville and Sparrows Point.
No team from outside the Baltimore metro area -- Baltimore, Anne Arundel, Carroll, Harford and Howard counties -- has ever won a girls lacrosse state title.