Quickly down by four goals in Thursday’s Class 4A state championship game, players on the Broadneck girls lacrosse team refused to show any panic. Instead, they acted like they’ve been there before.
The Bruins then showed it.
After going the first 11 minutes without a goal, No. 7 Boadneck flipped a switch, tightening its defense, winning draws and scoring eight of the next nine goals in an 8-6 win that gave the Anne Arundel County power its fifth straight state title at Stevenson University.
“We just kind of pulled it together,” sophomore Ceci Facciponti said. “We talked to each other and we were like, ‘Let’s go, we can do this.’ It was just about believing it.”
“These girls are just resilient,” coach Katy Kelley said. “Lacrosse is a game like basketball; 4-0 is really not anything to worry about in the first quarter. Last quarter down four, maybe. We said we were going to play quarter to quarter, and we went out in the second quarter and played like Broadneck.”
Facciponti finished with three goals and an assist to go along with two goals each by junior Nora Lopes and senior Savannah Libby, a pair of assists by senior Raleigh Kerst and a goal and assist from junior Anne Claire Tilghman.
The result was particularly emotional for Kelley, who announced after the game that she was stepping down as coach.
“It’s my last one,” Kelley said. “I knew it coming in.”
The legacy she leaves will be hard for any successor to match.
Broadneck (17-3), ranked No. 11 in the nation among public schools by USA Lacrosse, has claimed Class 4A crowns each of the past five years, the most consecutive titles a girls lacrosse team has won in any class since Mt. Hebron reeled off a state-record 11 straight from 1997 to 2007. And at least one team from Anne Arundel County has won a state title for seven straight seasons.
Seniors said they never could’ve expected this level of success when they first entered the program.
“I knew coming into this program that we had a great coach, we had great players,” senior Sienna Miller said. “It’s just a great program, and I‘m just so lucky to be a part of it.”
On Thursday, it just took a little while to show it.
Urbana (14-4-1) started quickly in this one, taking an early 4-0 lead after the first 6:58 with two goals each from Colby Johnson and Cora Betten. Broadneck several times hurt its own cause during the stretch with offensive turnovers, failed clears and a costly yellow card on a dangerous propel by Facciponti, the team’s draw specialist.
The Bruins, however, quickly got back into it, using a pair of low-angle free position goals by Facciponti to cut the lead to one, then pulling even when Kerst found Lopes with 3:22 left in the half.
“We did what we had hoped from the get-go. We came out on fire,” Urbana coach Ryan Hines said. “We were putting the ball it the net, we were working well, we were moving at break-neck speed. But we played a lot of defense tonight, and I think that just fatigued some of those defenders. We just can ran out there in the third quarter when they went on a little run, and that really hurt us. We couldn’t bounce back from that.”
Despite three goals each from Johnson and Betten, Broadneck only grew stronger in the second half, taking the lead for good when Lopes scored on a free position with 47 seconds left in the third.
The loss denied Frederick County its first-ever girls lacrosse state champion — something the Hawks are hoping to rectify next spring.
“From [Friday] on, the goal is going to be to beat Broadneck,” Hines said.
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Girls lacrosse
Class 4A state final
(at Stevenson University)
Broadneck 8, Urbana 6
Goals: B — Facciponti 3, Lopes 2, Libby 2, Miller; U — Betten 3, Johnson 3. Assists: B — Kerst 2, Miller, Facciponti. U — Queen, Lange, Hines. Saves: B — Robison 4; U — Swing 3. Half: Urbana, 5-4.
