Eden Prairie had been so dominant this season that Wednesday’s state final seemed to set up as a mere formality – a coronation instead of a game.

Blake School had other ideas.

The Bears stunned WSL’s No. 10 team, 11-10, to win the Minnesota State High School League Girls Lacrosse state championship. It was Blake’s second title in three years. The other – in 2008 – came over Eden Prairie by an identical 11-10 score.

That 2008 game was brought up by Blake School head coach Laura Mark before Wednesday’s contest.

“I reminded them that some of the people on our team were on that team in 2008,” Mark said. “And they were our second and third and fourth options and not our first options. And they were the ones who came through in that game.”

With the victory, Blake School snapped defending state champion Eden Prairie’s 32-game winning streak against in-state competition and kept the Eagles from winning their sixth state title in the last seven years.

Part of what made the Bears’ victory so surprising was the fact that Eden Prairie dominated them in the teams’ May 21 meeting. The Eagles won that game 15-6, and it was part of a 12-game winning streak dating back to their lone loss of the regular season – to Loyola Academy (Ill.) in late April – during which they’d out-scored opponents 239-69.

But Wednesday, the Bears were determined to slow down Eden Prairie’s high-octane attack. And they did. They kept the Eagles without a goal for the first 17 minutes 20 seconds of the game and later held them scoreless for a 17:33 stretch from late in the first half to mid-way through the second half.

“Last night we talked a lot about draw control and ball possession,” Mark said. “And that was huge for us – coming up with the ball time and time again and really controlling the pace of the game.”

“I think we worked hard throughout the game, we just could not quite settle into our own style of play, and that’s a credit to Blake,” Eden Prairie head coach Judy Baxter said.

Sophomore middie Meghan Bauer led Blake School (15-3) with four goals and an assist, and she set the tone for the game by scoring the Bears’ first three goals. The third came with 8:58 left in the first half and gave Blake School a 3-0 lead.

Eden Prairie (17-2) responded with three goals in a 1:53 span to tie the game. But from there Blake went on a 6-0 run that bridged the first and second halves to build a 9-3 advantage.

Eden Prairie fought back into the game with a 5-1 run that cut Blake School’s lead to 10-8 with 2:53 left. But Bauer scored a key goal with 1:56 left to give the Bears an 11-8 advantage, and they hung on.

Barely. Eden Prairie scored twice in 17 seconds – the second with 1:04 left – to pull within one. And a goal that appeared to have tied the game was called back because of a charge.

Eden Prairie’s dominance during the season might have ended up harming the Eagles Wednesday, as it had been some time since they’d been in a close game.

“I certainly don’t think there was any degree of overconfidence, absolutely none,” Baxter said. “We did not overlook Blake, but for some reason the girls looked nervous. And, truth be told, we don’t get tested a lot on defense, and the girls aren’t used to playing a lot of defense.”

Blake School, meanwhile, “saved up our best lacrosse for the last part of the season,” Mark said. Part of that, she said, probably is because the Bears are so young and needed time to mature.

Indeed, Blake School seems to have the makings of a dynasty, as Bauer and all the other girls who scored goals for the Bears will be back next season. Eighth-grade middie Lydia Sutton had three goals for Blake School, while junior middie Hillary Crowe had two and an assist and eighth-grade middie Anne Slusser added two.

Freshman attack Emma Claire Fontenot led Eden Prairie with four goals and an assist, and senior attack Blake Kist had two goals and two assists. Sophomore middie Christine Easton added two goals and one assist, senior attack Maya Farrell had a goal and two assists and junior middie Taylor Uhl had one goal and one assist.