We're No.1!

"McDonogh attacker Ali Carpenter (No.4) screams in joy with teammates after defeating Notre Dame Prep, 13-11, in the IAAM A Conference girls lacrosse championship game at Gerstell Academy, Sunday afternoon. McDonogh who was ranked No.1 prior to the match finished with a 19-1 record."

Lacrosse is well over here in Baltimore, but I ended the season with a pair of high great school girls games.

The first of two games featured powerhouse teams McDonogh and Notre Dame Prep, who were ranked No.1 and No.2 respectively.

The entire match was a sea-saw, back-and-forth battle. A one goal game the whole time. I continually found myself sprinting up and down the field to capture the winning teams efforts.

But as in any championship environment, I wanted to make the jube and/or dejection at the end of the game.

With time ticking down, I threw on my wide angle waiting to rush onto the field to capture to pure joy of McDonogh, but also had my long glass on my main body.

While I normally shoot from a distance with long glass, recently I've been conferring with other photographers (if it's a small high school game) before the end of the match to make sure we have mutual agreement to where we will shoot the pile up from. I know I wouldn't want to get in their way, and viceaversa.

In this case, there wasn't really any photographers there from publications, so I planned to rush the field. But when the buzzer sounded, I felt the urge to shoot with the longer glass and stay back. Enter the above frame.

Eventually the other photographers rushed the pile up before me, so I made my way out to the girls.

This is when the most crazy thing I've ever seen happen - One of the players in jubilation turned and hugged a photographer. I was laughing entirely too hard and in shock that I didn't get a frame of it.

I guess it didn't help that the photographer getting hugged by a player was me. Hahaha.