And so the spring sports season came to an end Sunday, with four Loudoun area teams playing for state championships, three down at Radford and one at nearby Westfield High School. And the final tally was a split.

Broad Run softball, despite losing several players to Division I programs off last year's undefeated team, despite actually losing in the regular season AND the Dulles District tournament, put it together when it mattered and emerged with a dramatic 2-1 victory in 11 innings over Tunstall to clinch its third consecutive AA state championship. Judy Betz was superb, going the distance and allowing the single run.

And Broad Run girls' soccer, no strangers to victories or state titles, secured both on Sunday, rolling past Hidden Valley, 3-0, to complete another unbeaten season in which they allowed a total of four goals. But as Tenorio pointed out in his game story, it could be just the beginning for this AA powerhouse program.

Potomac Falls appeared set to make it a Loudoun soccer sweep, but Blacksburg tied the score with seconds remaining in regulation after Asa Fox had given the Panthers the lead with less than two minutes left. Tenorio's words and Tracy Woodward's pictures do the game far more justice than I ever could, so I'll just let you click. The extremes in emotions by Fox were captured beautifully by Mr. Woodward.

And finally Loudoun Valley lost a 1-0 decision to Great Bridge in the AAA softball final. The Vikings ran into a hot pitcher, who needed only 63 pitches in a complete-game effort. Caroline Williams kept her team in it, though, allowing only one run and five hits. And once again, some nice shots by one of our Post photographers, this time Jonathan Newton, captured the emotion of the day.

And speaking of fine photo work, we pieced together a "best of" gallery from this weekend. But if you want to see all the pictures, you can.

We'll have plenty more postmortem and recap this week once Brooks and Tenorio have recovered from their extended weekend in Radford. But for now, we say congratulations to all the teams on getting this far and thank you for making it a memorable and eventful season.