It’s tempting to rely too heavily on a scoreline in telling the story of a match, and in the girls high school Oregon state championship, the 38-36 final does say a lot. Yes, the Beaverton vs. Grant was a tight, back-and-forth affair, but it was nearly a blowout.

The teams traded tries early on, but then Grant’s powerful runners – led by the A’au sisters – started wrestling control of momentum. McKenna Davis and Ruby Weinstein were also precise and damaging, and the reigning champs built a 17-point lead into the break.

“In every competitive game we’ve played, we trailed in the first half, and then when we came back in the second,” Beaverton coach Greg Tracy said. “I attribute the turn-around to the captains. We huddle at halftime – we talk about what’s going well, what’s going wrong – and then the captains take over and fix it.”

The Lady Barbarians had been beating themselves with penalties, so the team cleaned up its play and relied on the knowledge that it’s rallied to wins before and just had to execute the basics. After absorbing a thumping, fullback Estephanie Gonzaga stuck her tackles with new resolve. She starting inserting in the line more and scored. Captains Mikayla Gillespie and Emily Acuna, flanker Eita Lavemai – whose injuries took them off the pitch during the first half – returned to the pitch with new drive.

As for the forward attack, Beaverton twins Olivia and Losaline Tafea put in MVP performances, taking on the Grant twins and scoring two tries apiece. Their work in the middle allowed the outside attack to flourish.

“We have more weapons, more diversity in our try scorers,” Tracy said. “We have about eight players who score regularly, whereas Grant has three or four. In the first half, we were fighting in the forwards and not moving it out to our backs, so we changed that.”

Beaverton went up by 10 points, and then Grant enjoyed its second surge. On the last play of the game, a converted try made it 38-36, and the referee sounded the whistle soon afterward.

“At halftime, I had asked the girls, ‘What do you want to take home,” Tracy said. “There were actual trophies – a Cup – this year, and we didn’t want another runner-up. We wanted to take a Cup home.”

The trophy was the team’s second-ever state championship, and to make matters sweeter, the boys team won its final by three points. It was a good year for Beaverton.