Crowning boys, girls lacrosse Carroll County champs
A pair of teams have already captured outright county titles before May.
Before everyone dips into their Justin Timberlake memes and GIFs to celebrate the end of April ("It's gonna be May"), let's dole out some congratulations to the 2023 boys and girls lacrosse Carroll County champions.
Let's start with boys lacrosse and Westminster, which ran through its Carroll County Athletic League schedule with relative ease.
The Owls (11-1, 6-0 CCAL) outscored their county foes by a combined 82-27, led by a potent offense and senior Brady Covey's 43 goals and 53 points, tops in Carroll.
Jackson Zaranski, another senior attackman, has a team-high 20 assists and 36 points, while junior attackman Austin Hardesty chips in with 23 goals.
Westminster claimed its first outright title since 2019, but the Owls are no strangers to county championships. They've got 9 since 2010 -- there was no spring season in 2020 -- and won 5 in a row from 2002-06.
Meanwhile, Manchester Valley dominated in county girls lacrosse, and for the entire regular season to this point. The Mavericks (12-0) went 6-0 in Carroll, and outscored their foes by a combined 101-27.
Sophomore Emma Penczek is having a tremendous season, with 62 goals and 34 assists (both tops in the county) for 96 points (also tops). She gets her share of help -- senior Casey Meredith has 33 goals and 21 assists, and Haylee Bittinger is close behind with 28 and 16.
The Mavericks hadn't won an outright county title since 2016, when they were in the midst of capturing 4 in a row (they shared it with Century and Westminster in 2017 after winning it outright in 2014 and 2015.
I also wanted to give county title congrats to Liberty baseball and Francis Scott Key softball, who have their titles clinched as well.
The Lions shared the last 2 county titles with rival Century before holding it by themselves this spring. Liberty last won an outright championship in 2012.
For FSK, the Eagles shared a softball county title with Westminster way back in 2005. But as far as outright crowns ... well, I have no idea.
My tracking of county titles in softball goes back to 1982, and no signs of Key other than the co-title in '05. So an extra special shout-out to Francis Scott Key -- a long time coming.