Archbishop Spalding and Garrison Forest went into Tuesday afternoon’s regular-season field hockey finale about as close as any two teams could be.

Both were undefeated in the Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference and each had outscored conference opponents by a total of 30 goals. Their showdown turned out to be just as close.

Lauren Widdowson’s goal two minutes into overtime gave No. 3 Garrison Forest a 2-1 victory over the No. 2 Cavaliers and boosted the Grizzlies into the top-seeded spot for the A Conference tournament which begins Thursday.

“It means a lot to us,” Widdowson said of earning the top seed. “It’s my senior year and a bunch of the girls on the team’s senior year and I know we’ve been working really hard for the entire season and … for this game and we’re really excited to move on.”

Each team has only six field players and a goalie in overtime, so penalty corners become even more valuable with extra space to move in the circle. When the host Grizzlies earned a corner just over a minute into overtime, Sophie McAvoy and Ella Kokinis took shots that Cavaliers goalie Ruby de Frees stopped.

Widdowson scored off the second rebound.

“I knew I wouldn’t have a direct shot, because my back was to the goal,” she said, “so I just knew to spin around, because I always spin, so I spun it around and shot it into the goal.”

When the game went to overtime, Garrison Forest coach Mimi Smith felt good about the Grizzlies’ chances.

“We are a great team when we have space to run, so I felt pretty confident…” Smith said. “All week leading up to this, we were preparing for corners, so I had just talked about the corner we were going to do, opportunity presented itself and so they just did what they needed to do.”

With the win, the Grizzlies improve to 13-2-1 overall and to 9-0 in the conference while the Cavaliers drop to 15-3 and 8-1.

For three seasons, the Grizzlies and the Cavaliers have dominated the A Conference. For the past two, they’ve lost only to each other. Spalding won the championship last fall and Garrison won in 2019 — and they’re likely to face off for the trophy again on Nov. 6.

Spalding coach Leslee Brady, whose team hasn’t lost to an A Conference opponent other than Garrison Forest since 2018, said she was pleased with how her team played.

The Cavaliers rallied to tie the game on Stella Bumgarner’s penalty stroke in the third quarter after McAvoy had given the Grizzlies the early lead. Spalding just didn’t get a chance in overtime.

“It’s all about possession in overtime,” Brady said, “and making smart decisions, sending the ball into empty space vs. just trying to send it… so I think they did a good job, once they got possession, of doing that and of getting the corner and once you get a corner, numbers are on your side… Once you give up a corner, I think, in 7-v-7, it’s a done deal.”

The Cavaliers had the better of play in the first quarter with five penalty corners. They managed three shots off an early corner, but Grizzlies goalie Alyssa Klebasko saved one shot, a defender blocked another and the third sailed wide.

The Grizzlies opened the second quarter strong with an early shot that de Frees saved, but shortly after that, McAvoy finished off a breakaway by spinning the ball around a defender and firing a shot that de Free couldn’t quite reach with her stick as it sailed high into the right side of the cage.

Morgan Qualls, who led a strong Grizzlies defense along with Klebasko, Grace Barta and Augusta Santarelli, said Smith allows them to use part of the first quarter to make adjustments which helped them seize the momentum in the second quarter.

“I really think that part of our game is adjusting and realizing what’s working and what’s not…” said Qualls, a junior back, “so we had the timeout, we calmed ourselves down, we went out and made adjustments we needed to make. We just relied on each other, accountability, and knew we needed to step it up in order to win the game.”

Garrison Forest’s defense held the Cavaliers scoreless despite 13 penalty corners, but a pushing penalty when a Spalding player had a clear shot resulted in the penalty stroke with 2:33 left in the third quarter.

Bumgarner, a sophomore defender, fired her shot off the left post, but it ricocheted behind the diving Klebasko’s glove and barely made it over the line to tie the game. It was only the third goal the Grizzlies have allowed against A Conference opponents this season.

Both teams move on to host Thursday’s quarterfinal. The semifinals will be Nov. 3 at the higher seed and the championship game, Nov. 6 at Stevenson University. The Grizzlies aim to extend their conference leading six championships while the Cavaliers are going for their fourth title.

NO. 3 GARRISON FOREST 2, NO. 2 ARCHBISHOP SPALDING 1 OT

AS 0 0 1 0 0 — 1

GF 0 1 0 0 1 — 2

GOALS: AS—Stella Baumgarner; GS—Sophie McAvoy, Lauren Widdowson

ASSISTS: None

SAVES: AS—Ruby de Frees 11; GF—Alyssa Klebasko 7