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The next week will help UMBC's volleyball team gauge the progress of its rebuilding job.The program got a bigger recruiting budget and a new coach last year, when a 23-15 record represented a 22-game improvement over the previous season. Now Catherine Lavery, herself only six years out of West Virginia, is the second-year coach. Senior setter Joy Figueredo, a junior college transfer a year ago, is the top setter and Player of the Week in the East Coast Conference, and sophomore Kelly O'Brien is one of the ECC's top hitters.

The losing streak is 12 games and his best player's health has been a question mark for a month, so don't ask UMBC basketball coach Earl Hawkins how things are going.UMBC takes a 1-13 record into tonight's East Coast Conference home game against Hofstra. The Retrievers defeated Howard on a last-second shot by Derrick Reid Nov. 27 but haven't won since.Reid has missed the last six games with a possible circulatory problem that doctors and trainers haven't been able to diagnose lTC with any degree of certainty.

John Rzeznik, lead singer of the Goo Goo Dolls, should know a thing or two about wedding songs. He wrote the inescapable hit "Iris" in 1998, which plenty of newly married couples have played for their first dance, including, most famously, singer Avril Lavigne in 2006. And yet, for his own upcoming wedding in July, Rzeznik has no clue what song he and his fiance, Melina Gallo, will dance to. "I'm just happy that I'm getting married. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm still a guy," Rzeznik said from his Los Angeles home recently.

Bob Mumma, UMBC's sophomore catcher from Rising Sun, has been named the Most Valuable Player in the East Coast Conference. He takes a .413 batting average, 14 home runs and 54 RBIs into the double-elimination conference tournament, which begins today at Mercer County Park in West Windsor, N.J.Two other Retrievers sophomores, outfielder Greg Elliott and designated hitter Greg Deares, joined Mumma on the ECC all-star team selected by the coaches. UMBC also had the ECC batting champion in John Burns, a sophomore shortstop from Owings Mills who hit .445.

It is an important week for Towson State sports, but all of the events occurring around the Tigers are not positive.Athletic director Bill Hunter points out that the Tigers are the only school in the nation with a lacrosse team in the Final Four and a baseball team in the NCAA regionals. But that good news is tempered by the fact that Towson State must begin shopping for another conference following Rider's announcement that it will move from the East Coast Conference to the Northeast in 1992.

The agenda called for basketball, but much of the talk was of the uncertain future of the East Coast Conference.The seven-member conference will be down to five by the end of the year, and continuation could be determined by legislation that will come before the National Collegiate Athletic Association convention in January.Discussions occurred during the conference's annual basketball preview yesterday, a chance for coaches to say that individually several of their players are great, while overall downgrading their team's chances and boosting those of the opposition.

TOWSON STATE might not be going to the NCAA soccer tournament, but the Tigers are doing a good job of defending their East Coast Conference championship.With just about everyone back from his first ECC title team, coach Frank Olszewski thought Towson State might be able to make some noise against established South Atlantic Region powers, but the Tigers lost one-goal decisions to George Washington, American, Maryland and Loyola.The ECC is another matter. Yesterday the Tigers outlasted UMBC 2-0 in overtime, running their record to 9-4 overall, 5-0 in the conference.

Towson State athletic director Bill Hunter said the university hesitates to leave the East Coast Conference because the league would then lose its automatic bid to the NCAA basketball tournament for five years instead of the expected one year.Without expansion, the ECC will be down to five members next year. UMBC and Central Connecticut are first-year members. Towson State, Hofstra and Rider were members before the NCAA waived certain expansion requirements in 1989, a time of much realignment.

Last week's desertion by Rider College having dealt yet another blow to the unstable East Coast Conference, Towson State athletic director Bill Hunter will be meeting with the commissioner of the North Atlantic Conference this week in LTC hopes of renewing efforts to enter the New England-based league.Hunter and North Atlantic commissioner Stu Haskell have agreed to meet in Orono, Maine, at a time yet to be determined. The Towson athletic director will further explore ways to get his school into the league that last month voted -- for financial reasons -- not to accept the Tigers for the upcoming academic year.

UMBC grabbed the home-field advantage for this weekend's East Coast Conference soccer tournament by defeating SUNY-Buffalo, 3-1, yesterday in Catonsville.The Retrievers, who are undefeated in the conference, took the ECC regular-season championship by getting goals from Darius Taylor and Rob Hoch 47 seconds apart midway through the second half.The Bulls took the lead in the first half on a goal from Brian Hancher, but Rob Karas of UMBC tied it early in the second half on a penalty kick, his second of the year.