Boys And Girls

Hereford's annual Bull Run Invitational cross-country meet Saturday will be loaded with its usual top-notch talent, boasting representation from all but one team that appear in The Sun's top 10 rankings for both boys and girls. The star-studded boys' field will include All-Metro runners Pat Bailey (C. Milton Wright), Shane Stroup (River Hill), Izudin Mehmedovic (Oakland Mills) and Chris Wright (Mount St. Joseph). Cori Koch (Towson), the All-Metro Runner of the Year in cross country and the All-Metro Performer of the Year in indoor track, will lead the girls' field.

0 Goals the Fallston boys and girls soccer teams gave up in sweeping the Upper Chesapeake Bay Athletic Conference championships last week. The boys edged Aberdeen, 1-0, and the girls beat Harford Tech, 5-0. 4 Rushing touchdowns for North Harford quarterback Dan Griffin in the Hawks' 35-7 victory over Aberdeen 10 days ago. 141 The score recorded by Brandon Powers of Bel Air in the 36-hole state golf tournament at the University of Maryland last week....

Fundraiser prom -- The Anne Arundel County Youth Advocates' will host an '80s Prom from 8 p.m. to midnight Saturday at Bates Boys and Girls Club, 121 S. Villa Ave., Annapolis. The Reagan Years will perform. There will a dance and costume contest, appetizers, cash bar and prizes. Costumes are encouraged but not required. Tickets are $65 for singles and $115 for couples. 410-263-2542 or www.eightiesprom.com.

A RAY OF HOPE IS glimmering behind the clouds that unleashed icy rain on our neighborhood yesterday. Spring and summer sports sign-ups begin next weekend in Pasadena. Can sunshine and warm days be far behind?Organizations in the Greater Riviera Recreation Council are again providing one-stop registration sessions from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Jan. 23 and 30 and Feb. 6 and 13 at Sunset Elementary School, 8572 Fort Smallwood Road. The council also offers evening sessions at the school from 7 p.m. to 8: 30 p.m. Jan. 27 and Feb. 3.Organizations participating in the registration sign-up include:The Riviera Little League, open to boys 8 to 18. Information: Larry Johnson, 410-437-1249 or Rory Fracasse, 410-437-1482.

The Baltimore Sun High School Sports Show is now broadcast at 2 p.m. Saturdays on WBAL-TV. The show features coverage of the week's best events, boys and girls athletes of the week and a coach of the week. A student athlete is also profiled weekly.Pub Date: 3/06/99

Spaces remain for teams interested in the second-annual LAX Shoot-Out Indoor Lacrosse Tournament, which will be held Monday, Feb. 15, at the Four Seasons Sports Complex in Hampstead.The tournament offers boys and girls divisions in categories for ages 7-8, 9-10, 11-12, 13-14 and 15-17.Teams are guaranteed a minimum of three 24-minute games.For more information, call 410-363-8610 during the day or 410-486-7286 in the evenings.Pub Date: 2/07/99

The Wilde Lake boys and girls team swept the Class 3A East region championships for the second straight year yesterday at River Hill.The Wildecats boys proved too strong in the track events for runner-up Calvert County's Patuxent, winning 156-142. Wilde Lake captured all four relays and won six individual events."We have quality on the track all around," Wildecats boys coach Charles Shoemaker said. "And we did exactly what we were looking to do."Andrew Sterling won the 100- and 200-meter dashes in 10.7 and 22.5 seconds, respectively.

American boys and girls do the same number of chores, but not the same kinds of chores, according to a survey in the March/April is sue of Zillions, the Consumer Reports magazine for kids.According to the survey of 1,000 children, gender roles continue to apply in the assigning of tasks. Boys mowed lawns and took out the trash more, while girls dominated in caring for younger siblings, meal preparation and housecleaning.All children surveyed did at least one chore weekly, and more than half performed five or more.

At the turn of the century, boys' books were full of daring and adventure, while girls' books offered models of mothering and housekeeping. Thank goodness, times have changed.Nonetheless, boys and girls do tend to read somewhat different books, beginning in middle school, when peer-group pressure becomes so important. Most girls remain quite willing to read a book whose central character is a boy, perhaps because they read well enough to project themselves into another character. Boys, alas, become increasingly unwilling to read any book that has a girl as the central character.

Westminster came into Ferndale yesterday and won both the boys and girls Class 4A East Region track and field meet at North County High school.The Owls of Carroll County bested the Annapolis boys by 129-101 and on the girls side topped runner-up Arundel, 148-106.Westminster piled up the points with a host of placers from top to bottom in the 18 events.The Owls had four individual winners on the boys side with Ifeanyi Ani, the only double-winner in the long and triple jumps, and took five seconds with hurdler Jared Craig grabbing a pair.

A late-season surge helped the Mount Hebron boys win the region and state titles last fall. The No. 3 Vikings are hoping for more of the same this season, and they started their push with an impressive victory in Thursday's Howard County title meet at Centennial. Mount Hebron was led by Constantine Matsakis (fourth) and Russell Buescher (sixth). Kevin Mertz (14th), Karthik Venkatraman (16th) and Stuart Russell (24th) also contributed as the Vikings' 64 points were enough to beat defending champion Atholton (90)

2 One-goal victories for the Towson boys and girls lacrosse teams over top rival Dulaney on Saturday - 9-8 for the boys, 14-13 for the girls 25 Saves for Catonsville girls lacrosse goalie Tina Nicklas in Friday's 15-10 win over Franklin 69 Years of the McCormick Unsung Heroes Awards; one local boy and one local girl will be honored Monday with scholarships

next week: all-metro In next Thursday's edition, The Baltimore Sun selects the winter All-Metro teams, including Players of the Year and Coaches of the Year for boys and girls basketball, wrestling and indoor track. Also included are the All-Baltimore City and All-Baltimore County teams.

1 Don't hold breath: The NFL thinks more people should have access to tonight's Jets-Patriots game (8:15) on the NFL Network. Not that you should be expecting a check to arrive soon from the league to pay for it. 2 Who's that?: MLS Eastern Conference final (7:30 p.m., ESPN2): City of the Big Shoulders vs. Town Named After Exploiter of Indigenous Peoples. 3 Be clever: Spend tonight working on your signs for tomorrow's Maryland men's basketball opener. There must be something you can say about Bucknell.

CROSS COUNTRY 3A East and 2A South Regional Meets WHEN: Today, 3 p.m. WHERE: Centennial OUTLOOK: A total of 28 boys and girls teams will assemble at Centennial's challenging course to compete in the two regional competitions. Al Dodds, who has been coaching Centennial's boys team for 20 years and is the coordinator of the 3A event, said the course is "a little longer than the usual 3.1 miles. Closer to 3.3, and there are a fair amount of hills." The top seven girls and boys teams in the 3A and 2A competition will advance to the state semifinals.

How many people remember middle school as the best years of their life? Hardly anyone, we'd guess, and for good reason: It happens during that awkward, fidgety purgatory called adolescence, when the growth spurt sets in and kids' minds and bodies are so painfully out of sync that girls and boys seem to inhabit different planets. With all those raging hormones, it's a wonder anybody ever learns to diagram sentences or convert fractions to decimals. You'd think there had to be a better way, and in fact there always was. Among private schools, there's been a long tradition of separate institutions for boys and girls.

Today's question comes from Momof2, who asks: "OK, here's one from a friend who is a stay-at-home dad: how to deal with taking a potty-training or preschool girl to the bathroom? When boys go in a public bathroom with mom, no problem because everyone is in a stall. In the men's room, there are often men using urinals. Ignore it and take the girl to the men's room? Ask a stranger to take the girl into the women's room and help her? Keep her in diapers forever ...?" I asked Molly Brown Koch, a local parent coach for about 50 years and author of the recent book 27 Secrets to Raising Amazing Children, to respond.

A 28-year-old employee at a newly opened Boys and Girls Club in Annapolis has been charged with raping a 13-year-old girl there, police said yesterday. Joey D. Wise, an assistant program director at the club, was arrested Thursday and charged with second-degree rape, sexual solicitation of a minor and other offenses, Annapolis police said. The girl was alone with Wise at the club, in the 100 block of South Villa Ave., about 11 a.m. July 29, the day before the club was to open, when Wise told her he wanted to have sex with her and she agreed, according to charging documents.

1 Victories each for Glen Burnie's boys and girls lacrosse teams. Their first wins of the season were against Meade on Friday. 37-15 Advantage in shots by the St. Mary's boys lacrosse team in its 17-6 rout of Archbishop Spalding on Friday.

For six weeks, 11 young people will meet every day at 9 a.m. at Havre de Grace Elementary School. Some of them will go to work on an outdoor garden project, while others will be working with children at the school. Then at 2 p.m., the young people will head to the Boys and Girls Club of Havre de Grace, where they will play games and act as mentors for the children there. Although their roles are different, they have a common goal: to make a difference in the world. "There aren't many projects like this; it's very unique," said Danielle Ludwick, 24, who was born in Portland, Maine, but calls Toronto, Canada, home.