Field

Orb's path to the finish line in the second leg of the Triple Crown remains uncrowded. Normandy Invasion, the fourth-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby, dropped from contention for Saturday's 138th running of the Preakness on Sunday. Trainer Chad Brown and owner Rick Porter decided to stick with their original plan and point the horse toward prestigous races for 3-year-olds later in the summer. That leaves Orb, the colt co-owned by Baltimore County resident Stuart Janney III and Ogden Mills "Dinny" Pipps' stable, with only seven confirmed challengers at this point.

Some years, Maryland Jockey Club stakes coordinator Coley Blind has to turn horses away from the Preakness.  He and other members of the staff may look through the credentials of 20 horses, calculating their earnings -- the Preakness uses a fairly complicated three-tiered system -- to determine the 14-horse field. Not this year. As of Friday afternoon, connections for only seven horses had confirmed they planned to enter the race, and five others had been identified as strong possibilities.

Reinvestment and redevelopment of the distressed Park Heights neighborhood will continue under a funding agreement Baltimore's financial oversight panel approved Wednesday with the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation. The foundation, named for the late Orioles manager, will contribute $600,000 to develop a youth ballpark near Pimlico Race Course , one of multiple planned fields it's helping to create for at-risk children and teens in Maryland and across the country. The Board of Estimates agreed — over the protest of Arnold M. Jolivet, managing director of the Maryland Minority Contractors Association — to approve the agreement without opening the project up to competitive bids.

The Ravens' Most Valuable Player of the 2013 season could be Mark Smith. Smith is the team's head athletic trainer and responsible for trying to get the injured players back on the field as soon as possible, but also at 100 percent. Despite some great additions this offseason, like linemen Chris Canty and Marcus Spears and outside linebacker Elvis Dumervil, who are expected to upgrade the defense, there are still questions about the team's top returning players coming back from major injuries last season.

After 41 consecutive appearances in the NCAA men's lacrosse tournament, No. 13 Johns Hopkins was left out of the 16-team field when it was announced Sunday night. The program's run had been the longest active streak in Division I in all sports - just ahead of Miami baseball (40 straight) and Virginia men's soccer (32). "We're very disappointed," Blue Jays coach Dave Pietramala said. "It was not how we set out to have this thing finish. I'm certainly disappointed for our team and our seniors.

Two Baltimore-area residents were killed in a small plane crash in Virginia on Saturday, the Virginia State Police said Sunday. The men were identified as Berry Raymond Newgent, 73, of Davidsonville, and Thomas Berry Newgent, 51, of Westminster. Berry Raymond Newgent was the pilot and owner of the experimental plane, and Thomas Berry Newgent the passenger, police said. The plane attempted to land several times, likely at a nearby airstrip, and crashed in a field in Suffolk, police said.

The NCAA Division I men's lacrosse tournament will be missing Johns Hopkins for the first time in 42 years this season. After a 9-5 season, the Blue Jays were left out of the NCAA Tournament tonight. But three local teams will be playing next weekend. Maryland is the No. 6 seed and will face Cornell Sunday at 1 p.m. in College Park. Towson, the winner of the CAA tournament, will face No. 3 seed Ohio State Sunday at 3 p.m. in Columbus. Defending national champion Loyola will face Duke in Raleigh, N.C., on Sunday at 5:15 p.m. The lack of quality wins hurt Johns Hopkins this season.

LOUISVILLE, KY. - This year, Doug O'Neill and his assistants sat in the office at a barn in the far corner of the Churchill Downs backside. Few reporters dropped by, and O'Neill was not asked repeatedly to relive the running of the Kentucky Derby a day before. Last year's winning trainer, with I'll Have Another, O'Neill instead convened with his robust team to discuss plans for the 138th Preakness Stakes, scheduled for May 18 at Pimlico. Their Derby horse, Goldencents, finished 17th.

Final exams begin Monday for students at Washington College and the upcoming weekend is a prime opportunity for them to review and study for the tests. But the members of the men's lacrosse team may find it difficult to look at a book as they await word from the NCAA selection committee about their postseason fate. The No. 10 Shoremen own a 12-4 record and are sixth in the South region rankings. But they got bounced by No. 2 Dickinson from the Centennial Conference tournament semifinals on Wednesday and will learn whether they have earned an at-large spot from the Pool C candidates when the 26-team field is unveiled late Sunday night.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Standing outside of his barn at Churchill Downs, leaning against a temporary fence that seems more invitation that blockade, D. Wayne Lukas is as much a Kentucky Derby fixture as spilled bourbon and bad bets. The Derby takes thousands of horses in their 3-year-old years and whittles them down to a field of 20 through a series of races run across the country, and no trainer has been there at the end more often than Lukas. His two starters entered in Saturday's race, 30-1 Oxbow and 20-1 Will Take Charge, would be his 46th and 47th.