Bears

Stephanie Speierman's 17 strikeouts led Hammond's softball team to a 2-1 win over visiting Long Reach yesterday. The victory puts the No. 5 Bears (17-1) into the Howard County championship game, in which they will host Glenelg tomorrow at 4 p.m. Speierman's 17 strikeouts give her a county-record 321 for the season. She broke her record of 283, which she set last season as a freshman. Boys lacrosse Carver 15, Douglass 1 -- Maurice Washington scored seven goals to lead the Bears (10-1)

MINNEAPOLIS -- Road 'dogs.The Chicago Bears love that role. Send them on the road, tell them they have no chance to win. Push them to the brink of extinction. And then watch them respond.They were underdogs at Miami in November and knocked off the AFC East champions. They were decided underdogs again in yesterday's NFC wild-card game, but emerged with a 35-18 victory at the Metrodome."For some reason, we seem to play better on the road," said veteran defensive back Maurice Douglass.This young Bears team is going places.

Black bears occasionally make the news when they mix it up with domestic animals or wander onto an interstate exchange at the edge of suburbia.But the better story is told less often -- the secretive forest dweller that had been virtually eliminated at the turn of the last century is making a comeback."

CHICAGO -- Jay Leno and David Letterman have made Chicago Bears jokes almost nightly. A columnist from the Los Angeles Times referred to the Bears as "Da Bums" and as the "Munsters of the Midway." A gentleman from ESPN said of the Bears: "You wonder how they reached the playoffs, much less the Super Bowl." A fellow from a Chicago paper proposed after the Super Bowl that it might be best for all concerned if quarterback Rex Grossman went to a different team. A football writer for Sports Illustrated suggested the Bears try to trade for the Houston Texans' David Carr, who is the quarterback of one of the NFL's worst teams.

Unrestricted free-agent wide receiver Ricky Proehl joined his third NFL team in as many seasons yesterday when he agreed to a deal with the St. Louis Rams.Proehl told ESPN he signed a four-year contract worth $6 million, including a $1.6 million signing bonus. Proehl, who turns 30 next month, signed with the Chicago Bears before last season and led the team in receptions (58), receiving yards (753) and touchdowns (seven).Pub Date: 2/25/98

NEW ORLEANS -- It's a jungle out there, and the Chicago Bears are right in the middle of it after yesterday's improbable 20-17 victory over the previously unbeaten New Orleans Saints.Winning was particularly difficult here in the Big Easy, where 68,591 screaming, costumed fans dumped their noise pollution into the Superdome."We didn't even get halfway through the woods today," said Bears coach Mike Ditka, emotionally spent 15 minutes after the game. "We just got a step into the woods and now all the animals are going to come right after us -- Lions and Vikings and all that."

Maryland Rep. Helen D. Bentley has taken aim at a growing international black market in bear parts with a bill to ban the export of the animals' gall bladders, which are highly prized as an Asian folk remedy.Mrs. Bentley, a Republican, said yesterday that she hoped Congress would stop what she called the "senseless slaughter."The bill she introduced Wednesday puts her at odds with the Bush administration, which opposed a worldwide restriction on trade in black bears adopted this week by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, meeting in Kyoto, Japan.

Chicago Bears rookie defensive tackle Fred Washington was killed along with a companion in a one-car crash early yesterday morning.Washington was northbound on Illinois 43 in the Chicago suburb of Lake Forest, where the Bears have their training camp, when the car struck the right curb, crossed the road and hit a tree.Washington and his female passenger, Petra Stoll, 22, were pronounced dead at the scene, about two miles from Washington's residence.Weather conditions were favorable at the time and no evidence of alcohol or other drugs was found in the car, a burgundy Cadillac sports model registered to Stoll, officials said.

Morgan State's game plan against UMBC last night wasn't very complicated - the Bears simply wanted to make sure the Retrievers didn't get on a roll. That plan worked to perfection as Morgan State held UMBC to 20 field goals and 37 percent shooting. The Bears dictated the pace, stayed in command and never trailed en route to a 67-60 victory last night before 1,461 in their home opener at Hill Field House. Morgan State coach Todd Bozeman said the Bears wanted to keep a watchful eye on UMBC point guard Jay Greene, ranked fourth in the nation last year in assists per game.

In 1956, state wildlife officials estimated that only 12 black bears remained in Maryland. Nearly a quarter of a century ago, the state listed the black bear as an endangered species within its borders.In the years since, the number of black bears has increased to the point where wildlife biologists now estimate there are as many as 400 moving through the western counties of the state.And where for more than 100 years black bears had been rare and secretive residents of the remote forests and wetlands of mountainous Garrett and Allegany counties, now they are present in numbers that are testing the patience of landowners and challenging the skills and technology of game managers.