The AACPS Showcase, featuring varsity county championships, took place in its second year at Annapolis High on Saturday. Below are stories recapping each.
Boys cross country
Old Mill’s Tsedeke Jakovics and Southern’s Eric Penkala moved to the front of the pack right off the starting line, and those two standouts ran shoulder-to-shoulder for approximately two miles.
Jakovics made his move on the steep hill located in the woods of the Annapolis High course, accelerating during the incline just past the 2-mile mark.
Penkala was unable to respond and Jakovics pulled away to win with a time of 15 minutes, 51.52 seconds on the 3.2-mile course. It was a powerful performance for Jakovics, a senior who has been battling illness.
“I came in here a little bit sick and took a bunch of medicine to feel better,” Jakovics said. “I knew I had to be conservative in the first mile and a half. I wanted to conserve my energy as best I could. It was a very chill first mile. … I think I heard 5:03 when we came through.”
Penkala crossed the line inside the Annapolis High stadium in 16:12.49, almost exactly 21 seconds behind Jakovics.
“I felt pretty good going up the hill so I started to open up the gap. When I got to the part where it keeps inclining, that’s where I really made my move.”
Jakovics finished third at last year’s Anne Arundel County Championships because he kicked too soon and ran out of gas, getting passed by Arundel’s Zaiden Lane and Penkala.
“I just had to be really patient in this race. I’ve been learning how to be patient when it comes to cross country. I’m just a lot smarter at racing,” Jakovics said.
Senior Cooper Alahverdian finished fifth to lead an impressive team-wide performance by the Severna Park boys. Senior Caden Lazzor took seventh for the Falcons, who posted a low score of 54 points — a whopping 58 better than runner-up Crofton.
Boys Team Results
1. Severna Park, 54; 2. Crofton 112; 3. Old Mill, 84
Boys Individual Results
1. Tsedeke Jakovics (OM), 15:51.52; 2. Eric Penkala (SO), 16:12.49; 3. Owen Infante (SR), 16:23.92; 4. Campbell Gelineau (CR), 16:31.98; 5. Cooper Alahveridan (SP), 16:36.78
Girls cross country
Sophomore Josephine Kamas led a one-two-three sweep as Severna Park put forth a powerful team performance in the girls’ race.
Kamas outkicked teammate Kathryn Murphy at the finish to capture the individual championship with a time of 19 minutes, 26.07 seconds. Murphy, a junior and the defending county champ, finished almost 18 seconds later.
Freshman Lexi Fitzsimmons took third as Severna Park posted a remarkably low score of 15 points — 58 less than runner-up South River. Natalie Bowman and Jocelyn DiAngelo were fifth and sixth for the Falcons, who placed seven runners in the top 10.
“You can tell our team is really close. We train together all the time. When it comes time for race day, we all work together and whoever has the energy at the end finishes,” Kamas said.
Kamas said each team member has their strengths. Fitzsimmons is a strong starter so she led the pack of seven Falcons for the first mile or so. Murphy is strong on the hills so she moves to the front at that point.
“We literally work together until we can’t anymore than we break apart. Today, we stayed together for a really long time,” Kamas said. “It’s great that we all get to experience the happiness and joy of winning as a team. I’m thrilled to be the champ and I’m so proud of our team.”
Girls Team Scores
1. Severna Park, 15; 2. South River, 73; 3. Crofton, 81
Girls Individual Results
1. Josephine Kamas (SP), 19:26.07; 2. Kathryn Murphy (SP), 19:43.90; 3. Lexi Fitzsimmons (SP), 19:59.96; 4. Isabel Meadows-Soto (OM), 20:11.77; 5. Natalie Bowman (SP), 20:21.87
Cheerleading
The moment defending county champion Glen Burnie’s name was called, Meade cheerleading began to cry.
Cheerleaders in glittering black, silver and purple gripped each other’s hands so tightly, the blood left their fingers. Tears streamed down their cheeks. Some gasped, some laughed.
“You know when you can almost taste it, like when you’re about to have a great dinner and you can smell it? We had that,” coach Tierra Snowden said. “They was crying because that’s how hungry they were before they got to the mat. It was a hit.”
A half-point lifted the Mustangs over Glen Burnie, which only claimed its first county title a year ago and first state title a handful of years back.
“Knowing I beat Glen Burnie? I was just shocked,” junior Mala’khy Campbell said. “I didn’t know what happened.”
The Mustangs have never once heard their names called last at a county championship, let alone regionals or states. They’ve never gotten to experience the tension of waiting, the building excitement as team after team earned sixth, fifth, and so on.
Meade always accepted those placements with a grin, if it was lucky. Last fall, despite a strong start to a performance, a mid-routine injury took them out of the running. They advanced to regionals anyway, but not beyond.
“We’ve been underdogs for so many years,” Snowden said. “I’ve been doing this for eight years and we’ve never been first place. So to get here? My goal was to hit. And we hit!”
Everything Meade did seemed to cut through the air like a knife — its fliers soared, every word of its cheer could be heard.
Glen Burnie actually edged Meade on stunts and pyramid by 0.6 points and tosses, dance and cheer by 0.1. But it was the Mustangs’ jumps and tumbling that far and away separated them from the Gophers, 39.2 to 38.2.
Practicing recovery, Snowden said, earned them that near-perfect mark. They’d prepared for every possible error.
Meade will next compete in the 4A Regionals on Nov. 2 at APGFCU Arena in Harford County.
“We just gotta believe in ourselves,“ Campbell said. “And know anything is possible.”
Team Scores
1. Meade, 115.85; 2. Glen Burnie, 115.80; 3. Arundel, 113.70; 4. Chesapeake, 113.75; 5. Northeast, 110.95; 6. Broadneck, 110.85.
Field hockey
Crofton 2, Broadneck 1: When senior Olivia Feeley’s goal smacked the back of the cage, Crofton coach Amy Skrickus felt so excited she couldn’t even tell whose it was.
Broadneck and Crofton were locked at a 1-1 knot, and the clock sped towards one minute remaining.
Feeley plucked a ball loose and bent low as Broadneck defenders picked at her furiously. She lurched her stick forward, and her shot popped high.
For a second, both sidelines gasped — Broadneck in false relief, Crofton for what they knew was actually going to happen. The shot arced down and went in, making it 2-1.
“I got put in the high center forward and was like, ‘Oh, this is my time to shine,’” said Feeley, who also netted a penalty stroke earlier in the game. “And I didn’t want to go into overtime because we’ve got homecoming to get to.”
Crofton served revenge on Broadneck by the same score the Bruins beat them by in early September, 2-1, to capture the county championship crown.
It’s another page in their rivalry book; Broadneck claimed the regular-season and county title games last fall, but the Cardinals bested the Bruins in the Class 4A state semifinal and went on to become champions.
“We know, like they did, it could be different next time,” Broadneck coach Shannon Hanratty said.
Even in this game, the Cardinals’ (11-3-1) victory wasn’t sealed with Feeley’s go-ahead goal, as Broadneck earned another corner attempt as time expired. Senior Katelyn Kearns collected the insert and launched the ball toward a tangle of Cardinals and Bruins at the mouth of the cage.
But they couldn’t sneak past keeper Ryleigh Osborne, and Cardinals defenders chased the ball down and killed the possession to end it.
Broadneck’s offense corralled play to one side of the field for most of the game, especially in the first half. But six corner attempts withered against Osborne (17 saves) and crew (as would another four in the latter half).
Still, it seemed any moment — a single misstep — would be Broadneck’s to seize.
With 2:40 left in the third quarter, freshman Cate Imber scored a rebound to knot the score at 1.
Crofton had to act.
Karryn Dean dealt the hot hand, and celebrated Feeley with the rest.
“We’ve got good scoring on both sides, and it’s always been our defense against theirs,” Skrickus said. “When we get the opportunities, we’re gonna keep shooting. We fought and they know they might not happen often, but when they do, we take advantage.”
Boys soccer
South River 2, Severna Park 1 (PKs, 5-4): All the pressure in the world technically followed Kamil Niwa as the South River senior stepped up to the ball. Severna Park keeper Charlie Samples, who’d already stopped a dozen shots Saturday, stared him down, knowing full well Niwa spelled the end of a fraught, even county title game between region rivals Severna Park and South River, a 1-1 lock that survived to penalty kicks.
Falcons midfielder Zachary Campbell just knotted the penalty kick score at 4, a shot that just skimmed over South River goalkeeper Bryan Wise’s outstretched hands. Patrick Mitchell, Lucas Gardeniers, Lucas Cerulla and Daniel Rodriguez had all secured theirs for the Seahawks.
Niwa approached the ball slowly, remembering the penalty kick he’d missed in the county championship game as an underclassman, a shot that flew over the net.
“I made sure to keep it low. I made sure to stay calm,” he said. “I knew I was gonna score the whole time.”
With Niwa’s penalty kick, the Seahawks edged Severna Park to claim their third overall county title and first since 2015, just a year after the Falcons beat them for it in double overtime.
He had to, not only for the glory of bringing the county plaque back home, not only to pay Severna Park back for dispatching the Seahawks earlier in the season, but for the armband on his bicep.
The one the whole team had scribbled, “For CJ.”
Shortly after a powerful blast from Falcons senior Christopher von Diezelski lodged in the back of the net nine minutes into the first half, captain CJ Santos arrived by Gator, his leg well-padded and immobile. The senior underwent surgery earlier in the day after suffering a brutal, season-ending injury in the AACPS Showcase semifinal against Broadneck. The loss angered South River, but it boldened them, too.
South River clawed fruitlessly through halftime. Both defenses flung themselves against any potential goal-scoring shot like feral cats on prey, and the second half wound down without seemingly any answer. The Seahawks’ shots inched closer and closer, and then, a lucky break: a whistle that handed senior Jeffrey Serrano a free kick with 17 minutes left. The senior arced it through the line of Falcon defenders to tie.
“I just knew we had to score for [CJ]. I knew when Jeff was taking it, it was going in,” Niwa said. “Once we scored that goal, I knew we were gonna win.”
Just as they did last year, South River will once again face Severna Park for a third time in the 3A East I region playoffs next week as it pursues defending its state title.
“They’re our biggest rivals right now,” Seahawks coach Marlyn Argueta said. “But more than that, we expect our team to act like champions. We have championship DNA, and I think people in the county forget that. We’re the defending champs. We’re here a third year in a row. We don’t want to lose.”
Volleyball
Broadneck 3, Arundel 1: When Broadneck volleyball claimed the 2019 county title over Arundel, it had no way of knowing it would meet the Wildcats four more times in the county championship — and lose every time.
But on Saturday, the Bruins — powered by ironclad blocking as well as junior Kennedy Smith and her 17 kills — downed their rivals at last in four sets, just as they had six years ago, 25-23, 25-22, 21-25, 25-22.
“It’s such a good feeling. Our whole team played so extremely well. We really balled out,” Smith said. “We fought so hard for that game.”
The funny thing is, in doing it, Broadneck never actually carried a lead in a set over Arundel.
Sure, the Bruins eked one-, two-, three-point advantages over their rivals, and did so most certainly at the end of three of the four sets. But more often than not, Broadneck found itself backed to a wall, battling from behind.
To rally is to be a Broadneck volleyball player in 2024; even in sweeps this fall, such as the win in the AACPS semifinal that vaulted Broadneck into the county championship game, the Bruins have had to fight from a deficit. Arundel led by five in the first set, only for the Bruins’ Julia Rubino and Amanda Protzman to wrench control back from the service line. Kills earned the Wildcats a modest 20-17 advantage in the second set, just for Broadneck to take advantage of their foe’s errors and set senior Addison Sladsky up for two choice kills to win that set, too.
And then in the third, Arundel truly tossed Broadneck onto a bed of coals. Led by Bailey Swinton and Daisy Pentorn, the Wildcats jumped out to 10-3 and 15-9 leads that Broadneck had only the occasional answer for. After a Bruins timeout, the two teams struggled through a pair of ties and handful of one-point gaps just for Swinton to land the kill that secured Arundel’s only set victory.
Now, the Wildcats felt empowered. In the fourth set, their kills struck their targets, too. But unlike the third frame, the teams couldn’t shake each other without soon falling back into an equal score, 10 times.
“All season, when we’re coming from behind so often, being tied almost feels nice,” Broadneck coach Tracey Regalbuto said. “I don’t think we were very stressed because we’re used to trailing at the end of a set, then coming back again.”
At 18-18, Smith leapt into the air, met the ball with her first, and pounded her first of two kills to the floor. Arundel never fully recovered, and Broadneck junior Anna Graves ended it on her 14th kill.
For years, the Arundel-Broadneck rivalry carried over into the playoffs, such as in 2019, when the Wildcats beat the Bruins for their first title in the MPSSAA era. But since Arundel moved to the 3A in 2022, Broadneck shifted its attention to new challengers. Even before Saturday’s game, the main name occupying Broadneck’s attention was 4A East Region II opponent, Leonardtown.
“It’s a good win tonight and we’re excited for it,” Regalbuto said, “but our sights are set a little further than this.”
Girls soccer
Severna Park 2, Chesapeake 0: It happened so quickly, Maria Bragg could hardly remember it — the icebreaker goal that would lead directly to Severna Park’s second straight county title and 13th overall.
For one half, Chesapeake used everything it had learned from its last shutout loss with Severna Park to prevent the county’s most dangerous scorers from doing more than sniffing at a goal. The Falcons prefer to funnel its attacks from the back, so the Cougars laid as much pressure on as they could.
“They came out fired up like we knew they would,” Falcons coach Rick Stimpson said. “So we had to do a better job of getting the ball into space, trying to break them down a little bit higher up in the field.”
The high-press could’ve rattled Severna Park. It was unfamiliar, junior Ava Scott (one goal) said, but at halftime, the Falcons agreed as one that settling down — believing that they could do it — was all they really needed to edge past it.
In the second half, Severna Park got to work opening up the field like a plow pushing snow. Junior Maria Bragg looked for her opportunity on the outside, when sophomore Harper Wallace found her.
“Our chemistry is so good, we almost know where someone’s going to be. I swear, Harper didn’t look at me before she passed it,” Bragg said.
After Bragg’s opening shot, it didn’t take long for Scott to follow through.
“We talked about it at halftime, that if we got on the board, it would help open it up. They’d have to come out of their shell a little bit and create those openings for us,” Stimpson said. “It was just a day to be patient.”
Four Falcons touched the ball before Scott got her shot. The junior thundered to the outside pocket, readied the ball on her foot and then kicked what her team described as a “rocket,” a “banger.”
“We worked for that opening. While it might not have been the first opportunity, we took risks at the right moment,” Scott said.