With a 28-7 victory over Arundel (1-5) on Friday night, the Chesapeake Cougars evened their overall football record at 3-3 and put themselves in position for the first winning season in Tom Kraning's 13 years as coach.
Three of the four games left on the Cougars' schedule are winnable: No. 9 Old Mill (5-1), Severna Park (2-4), South River (0-6) and neighborhood rival Northeast (4-2).
A 6-4 record would equal the only winning season in the 24 years of Cougars football, set in 1985 under Denis Schanberger.
Going to the ancient single-wing offense last season under the urging of JV coach Jim Simms changed the Cougars fortunes.
The Cougars rolled up a county all-time second-best 457 rushing yards last week in a 35-28 loss to North County, had 289 on the ground against Arundel, the latter total close to their season average.
Records department
North County quarterback Mike Pfisterer is the state's public school career record holder for touchdown passes (57) and yards passing (5,666).
Pfisterer threw for 109 yards and one touchdown pass in Friday's 30-27 loss to Southern-AA (2-4).
North County (3-3) has four regular-season games left, and Pfisterer would have to average about three scoring passes and 156 yards to break the overall Maryland records 67 career touchdown passes by John Carroll's Al Neville (1967-69) and the career yards passing milestone of 6,286 by Lucas Phillips of Mount St. Joseph (1993-96).
McDonogh's Bobby Sabelhaus (1992-94)is sandwiched in between with 5,826 yards.
In Southern's upset victory over North County, the first ever for the Bulldogs, senior back Brian Holland ran for a school record 285 yards on 32 carries and scored three touchdowns. Holland eclipsed the Southern record 272 yards by Joe Tongue, who had five touchdowns that night against Great Mills in 1982.
Sideliners
Severna Park's senior linebacker-running back Todd Soroka showed why he was an All-County linebacker last year in his team's 38-14 loss at archrival and 10th-ranked Annapolis (5-1) on Friday night. The 5-foot-10, 180-pound Soroka was all over the field making tackles and keeping the Falcons (2-4) close until the final period when Annapolis pulled away from a 24-14 lead.
Another bright spot for the Falcons was the play of junior quarterback-defensive back Brian Burns, who rarely came off the field. Burns was 9-for-21 passing for 81 yards, with Austin Horn grabbing five for more than 50 yards, and the former picked off an pass.
Cardinal Gibbons running back Hassan Muhammad, the metro area's leading rusher and scorer with 1,241 yards and 20 TDs for 120 points and 1,523 all-purpose yards, lives in Hanover, which is in the Meade district. Honored by Fox 45 TV this week as its Prep Player of the week, Muhammad is one of several Anne Arundel County residents playing for the Crusaders.
One other county resident playing for Gibbons is wide-out Rocky Brown, who transferred last year as a junior from Old Mill. Brown is among the metro area's top receivers with 14 catches for 207 yards and a touchdown. At defensive end, Brown has 50 tackles and 13 sacks.
Arundel's Jessica Collins, who last year played on the Wildcats' 4A state champion girls basketball team as a freshman, tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right leg during a summer national tournament. But she has told coach Lee Rogers she will not miss any time this season.
"Jessica said she's going to be ready in November and you have to believe her as hard as she has been rehabbing," Rogers said.
Collins, a 5-foot-6 guard, is wearing a brace on her leg and was seen getting around pretty good as a spectator at Tuesday's Severna Park at Arundel volleyball match.
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