Savage helps Maryvale Prep lacrosse stun St. Mary’s in OT
It didn’t faze Maryvale Prep when St. Mary’s took a two-goal lead to put it on the ropes in the second half. It simply battled back.
It didn’t bother the Lions when the Saints netted a go-ahead goal with only seconds left in regulation. Instead, they just threw the kitchen sink.
“We had nothing to lose at that point,” Maryvale coach Kim Dubansky said. “May as well go as hard as anything. I think that’s a hard thing to defend.”
The Lions’ Payton Rowley tied the game with two seconds left and Courtney Savage scored the game-winner shortly into overtime to give Maryvale a 9-8 win in Annapolis on Wednesday.
Rowley scored four goals to lead Maryvale to its second straight win.
“We never gave up as a team,” Savage said. “That was definitely a team win.”
Though Maryvale got a two-goal jump on St. Mary’s, the Saints forced the Lions to turn the ball over eight times in the first half, preventing them from building any kind of momentum.
Dubanksy said her players needed time adjusting to the rainy conditions and slick field. Once they did, they needed to learn how to be a little more patient with the ball — and quickly.
“We had people step up at meaningful times,” Dubansky said. “I asked, who wants the ball? You got to want the ball out there. And they’re all like, ‘I want the ball.’
“Pretty cool to have a team that all wants the ball. You could see that when it came down to pressure time.”
Field hockey
Liberty 5, Westminster 1: Brenda Strohmer turned to her players on the sideline, during a brief pause in the action, to let them know what she thought of Liberty’s performance in the first half Wednesday against Westminster.
“This is them on fire,” the Lions coach said to her field hockey reserves.
It was barely hyperbole. Liberty set an aggressive tempo from the opening whistle and scored five times in the first half en route to a 5-1 victory in a matchup of two state champions from the 2019 season.
Caitlynn Szarko had two goals and an assist, Jenna Evans added a pair of assists, and the Lions improved 6-0 by winning their 33rd consecutive game. They led 3-0 after the first quarter, then scored two more times in the second quarter in response to Westminster’s lone tally of the day.
— Pat Stoetzer
Girls volleyball
Marriotts Ridge 2, Atholton 0: Before the season, Marriotts Ridge senior Brenna O’Reilly said she expected there to be plenty of hurdles with trying to play a volleyball season during a pandemic.
So heading into Wednesday’s match against visiting Atholton, with three players out of the lineup and the Mustangs not having played a game in a week, she said the key was simply doing what they’ve done when faced with any kind of adversity this season.
“Every time things get tough, whether it’s in a match or just dealing with something overall, we just come back together and lean on our core group of seniors to refocus,” O’Reilly said. “It’s definitely been challenging at times, especially the things that are out of our control, but for all the setbacks there have been, I see the improvement. Tonight, especially, I thought we really pulled it together.”
Marriotts Ridge (4-2) answered every Atholton (3-3) push over the course of the evening, securing a sweep of the visiting Raiders by winning 25-20, 25-19.