“It was like having nine coaches out there on the field,” Greiner said. “They’ve been truly dedicated to this program, and they were not going to let this one slip away.”

Perhaps the biggest senior performance came from goalkeeper Inigo Diz. When the game reached the shootout, Greiner asked his keeper for one save. Diz came up with two.

“It was phenomenal,” sophomore defender Fletcher Saaty said. “I think this group’s calmness and ability to stick to our game really stands out. We never let other teams affect how we played or how we won.”

The penalty kick goals for Meridian (18-3-1) came from junior Felix Green, senior Alex Gardner, senior Fernando Herbas and senior Charlie Russell.

McGovern’s goal lifts Brentsville

In May, the Brentsville District girls’ soccer team was visited by players from the 2003 squad. That was the first and only Tigers team to win a state championship, and they were returning to campus to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their accomplishment.

Junior midfielder Peyton McGovern remembers talking to those players and hearing about their experiences in the state final: The nerves. The joy. The memories. She hoped her team was good enough to make a similar run.

On Saturday in Fredericksburg, Brentsville earned its own place in school history with a 1-0 win over Lafayette in the Class 3 championship game. McGovern scored the lone goal with 20 minutes remaining.

“They’ve set a goal from the beginning of the year to get to this point,” Coach Scott Kerns said. “We really felt we had the talent to compete with anybody, and we felt it was a reasonable goal to hope for a state championship. So they seemed comfortable on that stage.”

If the Tigers seemed comfortable on the field, McGovern said it took a while for them to reach that point. The boys’ game that preceded theirs went long, meaning they had to sit and wait for an extended period.

“As we waited, it seemed like the nerves just built up and up,” said McGovern, an Arkansas commit. “So we needed to shake those off in the first half. We really picked it up after halftime and just dominated the game.”

The Tigers (22-1) created chances all afternoon, but with 20 minutes remaining they were still searching for that first goal. It was then that McGovern decided to create a chance on her own. She received the ball near midfield and made a long run, weaving her way through defenders to the penalty box, where she ripped a shot into the bottom right corner of the net.

“I wanted to try and make my move,” McGovern said. “So I took my chance when I saw one.”

From the sideline, Kerns watched in awe as his star player stepped up at the biggest possible moment.

“She just made the decision to go score a goal and help us win a state championship,” Kerns said. “Just an amazing player and an amazing team.”