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Ryan Kulick's two out, two RBI single to center with the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh inning propelled the Howard Lions to their first state championship in school history Friday night as they defeated the Severna Park Falcons 5-4.

Howard struck first in the contest, scoring a run in the bottom of the first inning off of Severna Park starting pitcher Cam Clark. Matt Flynn hit an RBI single that scored the courtesy runner for Brian Jakubek who reached via an error and advanced to second on a Kulick's single through the left side. After one inning, Howard had a1-0 lead.

That was how the score would remain until the sixth inning as both teams starting pitchers, Gabe Delgado for Howard, and Clark for Severna Park, dominated and controlled this ball game for the meat of the contest. Both did it in two entirely different ways as well. Clark was more of the power pitcher, attacking with his late action fastball and utilizing a hard slider. Deglado used a three pitch mix, filling up the strikezone with his fastball and breaking ball while completely disrupting the hitters timing with his changeup. Both offenses shut down while the two pitchers confidently cruised until the sixth inning.

That was when Severna Park was able to take the lead for the first time off of an RBI double to left field off the bat of Luke Guy, scoring two runners and the Falcons took a 2-1 lead. After a quick bottom of the sixth, the Falcons again put two runs on the board when Kody Milton hit an RBI single to left with the bases loaded, and Brandon Simonds hit an RBI single to right to extend the Severna Park lead to 4-1.

Howard, who had been quiet after that first inning, started the frame with back-to-back singles from Alex Campbell and Delgado. Clarke would then get a strikeout to make the first out of the game. A walk would follow to load the bases and Clark again would come up with a big strikeout, his 11th of the game, to get two outs. Clark's day would end then due to pitch count and Severna Park would go to the pen. A walk would get Howard their first run of the inning and a passed ball would make the score 4-3 with runners at second a third. Another walk would again load the bases for Kulick, who quickly went down 0-2. Kulick would foul off three pitches to extend the at-bat then send an elevated fastball to center field, winning the game for Howard and giving the Lions the schools first championship in history.