Contests

After defeating three Middle Atlantic Conference opponents, Stevenson breaks up its league slate with a non-conference tilt with Roanoke Tuesday night. The game was initially scheduled to be played at Mustang Stadium in Owings Mills on Wednesday, March 6, but a storm forced the contest to be postponed. Finding a later date proved impossible until Stevenson offered to travel to Salem, Va., and both sides agreed to Tuesday night at Donald J. Kerr Stadium. “We wanted to keep the game,” Mustangs coach Paul Cantabene said Monday.

Those stories you tell about your roommate from hell just might pay off. Live Baltimore is running a contest, offering a $100 prize package for the best worst roommate tale. A front-runner is Jennifer Anne Jobson, who talks about her freshman year roommate, who was sharpening a big knife the first time they met. One day, the girl -- who liked to eat fried chicken in bed -- took the knife to Jobson's mattress, some of her clothes, their rug and their bean bag chair. She also used it on a squirrel, which she left, dead, in Jobson's bed. Another person had a roommate that peed in the bathtub.

Johns Hopkins has qualified for 41 consecutive NCAA tournaments, making the field every year since the tournament format was implemented for the 1971 season. At this point, a 42nd appearance is becoming a murkier proposition. Friday night's 10-9 loss to No. 19 Albany dropped the No. 12 Blue Jays to 6-4 overall. That is not a death knell for a program that has captured nine national championships, but the warning signs are there. Johns Hopkins has lost three of its last four contests and is 1-4 against ranked opponents in The Sun's Top 20. The team has lost to No. 3 North Carolina, No. 8 Princeton, No. 9 Syracuse and now the Great Danes with a lone win coming against No. 15 Virginia.

When Nick Liddil scored with nine seconds left in Ohio State's 9-4 loss to Loyola in an Eastern College Athletic Conference men's lacrosse showdown Saturday, it was a footnote in a contest that had been decided much earlier. Try telling that to the Greyhounds. As they walked off the field at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium in Columbus, Ohio, several defensive players were unhappy about Liddil's goal and shared their displeasure with teammates. "A big thing we've been talking about all year is finishing the game on the offensive side and defensive side," junior defenseman Joe Fletcher said.

Maryland's competition for startup companies — with three grand prizes of $100,000 each — was narrowed to nine finalists Monday. The companies, based largely in Baltimore and Montgomery County, were part of an original field of nearly 260 in the InvestMaryland Challenge. Winners will be announced April 15. The contest comes at a time of tight purse strings among the venture capitalists who invest in young firms. Venture capital funding in Maryland dropped 12 percent last year, mirroring a national contraction, according to the MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.

No. 5 Maryland maintains a 45-43 lead in the series with its Atlantic Coast Conference rival, but No. 13 Virginia has won seven of the past eight meetings. The Terps (6-1 overall and 1-1 in the conference) entered the week ranked second in Division I in scoring (14.0 goals per game), but have averaged just nine goals in their past two contests. The Cavaliers (5-4) have lost three straight games for the first time since 2004 and four of the past five. This is Virginia's first game in the ACC this season.

Twelve teams in Division III have yet to sustain a loss this season, and one of them is No. 4 Washington College. The Shoremen improved to 8-0 after Wednesday's 11-10 win at Haverford, and coach Jeff Shirk doesn't shy away from the hoopla surrounding the team's unblemished record. “It's awesome. I've never been 8-0,” he said Friday morning. “It's been a fun ride so far because everyone keeps talking about the War on the Shore [against No. 7 Salisbury on April 17] and the [No. 2]

Reigning national champion Loyola has won seven of its first nine contests this season, but both of the team's losses have occurred against ranked opponents. The No. 15 Greyhounds (7-2 overall and 3-0 in the Eastern College Athletic Conference) get a chance to change that trend when they pay a visit to No. 8 and league rival Ohio State (6-2, 1-1) this Saturday. The showdown with the Buckeyes will kick off a three-game stretch in which Loyola will meet conference foes in Ohio State, Fairfield (6-3, 2-0)

The first half of the season has ended with UMBC compiling a 3-5 record. But the next five weeks may be more important -- and even more rewarding -- for the men's lacrosse team. Saturday's road contest at Hartford begins America East play for the Retrievers. They have won or shared four conference regular-season titles and three league tournaments, which include an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. That's why Saturday's game has been likened to the start of a new season. “It's the most important part of the season because we want to compete for a conference championship and we want to secure a bid to the NCAA tournament,” coach Don Zimmerman said Wednesday afternoon.

When The Baltimore Sun inaugurated its Peeps Recipe Contest this year, it was a way to acknowledge the unstoppable force that has become the Peep. [See photos of all Peeps recipe contest entries here .] Once, the marshmallow treat was mere Easter candy. Those days are over. Peeps are cultural touchstones with fan clubs, a clothing line and even a store devoted to them at National Harbor. They've inspired people to make sculptures and videos, and even to write books and songs.