Division

HobartCoach: B.J. O'Hara, third year, 23-7.1991 record: 8-6.Outlook: Statesmen have won 12 straight NCAA Division IIchampionships and have a good shot at No. 13 despite heavy losses from graduation. Gone is the team's leading 1991 scorer, attackman Bill Miller, now an assistant coach at Penn, but the second and third scorers of a year ago, attackmen Tim de Lowe and Jeff Tambroni, are back. Senior Jim Patton, who had 18 goals last year, leads the midfield. The whole starting defense graduated but freshman Jim Martin will help fill the void.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The National Collegiate Athletic Association convention ended yesterday on the friendliest note imaginable.Delegates from Division I-A schools presented Division III colleagues with a legislative gift.Division III returned the courtesy, supporting a rules change that Division I-A wanted badly.It was a case study in the back-scratching and arm-twisting that drives NCAA convention business. More important to the divisions involved, it worked.Division III hasn't had a bigger victory.

StreamlineAccounting, a division of Streamline Business Inc. specializing in bookkeeping services, has moved its operational unit to 139 N. Main St. in downtown Bel Air. The new facility employs 15 people who are handling daily activities of the operational, sales and marketing teams. StreamlineAccounting was based in Baltimore before moving to Bel Air. It serves small to midsize companies in the Baltimore-Washington area. Marissa Joynt, StreamlineAccounting's director of operations, said in a news release that the move to Bel Air allows the company to "deliver a greater number of services, faster and more cost-effectively to our customers."

The Maryland Sportfishing Tournament, which encompasses freshwater, Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean off the state's coastline, has been revamped this year, including an All-Maryland Angler division."

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Dave MacWilliams would like to have this kind of offensive firepower every night.Baltimore's rookie coach guided the powerful American Division squad to an entertaining 29-24 victory over the Nationals in yesterday's National Professional Soccer League All-Star Game.Cleveland's Zoran Karic and Hector Marinaro combined for 18 points as the Americans rallied from a 15-10 halftime deficit to avenge last year's 29-21 loss at St. Louis."It was the best game I've ever played in," said Karic, who was named co-MVP with Kansas City's Brian Haynes of the Nationals.

The regular season in college lacrosse is down to 16 days, and it's going to take every one of them to bring the fuzzy picture in Division I into focus.The fight for 11 berths in the NCAA tournament -- Notre Dame probably will be the western representative for the fourth time in five years -- continues this weekend, and the long-term winners and losers won't be known until 6 p.m. on May 8, when the 12-team field is announced.Tonight, Johns Hopkins goes to Navy and the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament opens in Charlottesville, Va. Loyola's trip Delaware on Sunday means that eight of the top 13 teams in the U.S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association rankings will meet head-to-head this weekend, and the potential for movement in the eyes of the NCAA -- up or down -- is great.

The showdowns just keep coming.We had No. 3-ranked St. Mary's at No. 9 Annapolis in girls basketball last night, and at 7: 15 p.m. Tuesday, we have No. 7 Arundel (9-2, 4-1) at home in Gambrills to play No. 8 Meade (9-3, 5-0).Meade-Arundel is a matchup of county public school division leaders, North and South, respectively, and could be a preview of the county championship game Feb. 25.Of course, No. 9 Annapolis (9-2, 4-1) and unranked Old Mill (7-4, 4-1) hope to have something to say about that in their respective South and North divisions.

The directors of Ellicott Machine Corp. have agreed to sell part of the assets of the company's 107-year-old dredging division to IHC Holland, the world's largest dredge equipment maker, the company said yesterday.The Dutch company, part of the giant IHC Caland N.V. conglomerate, was competing against a management team, headed by Peter A. Bowe, president of the dredging division, which had the financial backing of both the state and Baltimore governments.The sale price was not disclosed.The acquisition raised the possibility of severe cuts in the 125-person work force at the division.

A deal to sell a Bethlehem Steel division, which includes the closed rod mill at Sparrows Point, is close to becoming a reality, according to officials of Ispat Group of Calcutta, India.In a press release distributed this week, Ispat officials said they were "in an advanced stage of negotiations" with Bethlehem to buy its bar, rod and wire division. That division includes Bethlehem's rod mill in Baltimore County, which had a work force of 350 before it was shut down Aug. 14.In addition to the rod mill, negotiations involve steel mills in Johnstown, Pa., and a 13-inch bar mill in Lackawanna, N.Y. The largest operation in the division is the Johnstown operation, which employed 1,950.

What do statistics mean, anyway? Anything you want.When Washington coach Terry Murray and goaltender Don Beaupre look at the overall team performance numbers, they see different things.The Capitals basically have had their way with Adams Division Notebookteams (12-5-2), Norris Division teams (10-3-2) and Smythe Division teams (6-4-1). It is only the Patrick Division teams that give them trouble -- 11-18-2."I hope we're mature enough and experienced enough to be beyond the point of not being able to do it whenever we need to do it," Murray said.