Gators

When Florida's women's lacrosse team plays at Johns Hopkins Saturday, it will be more like a home game for about half the Gators' roster. Thirteen players hail from Maryland and 11 of them played at Baltimore area high schools. The most recent Gators starting lineup includes Ashley Bruns from Mount Hebron; Brittany Dashiell, John Carroll; Sam Farrell, Severna Park; Haydon Judge, St. Mary's; Kayla Stolins, Loch Raven; and Emily Dohony, Hereford. All-American Kitty Cullen, McDonogh, has been sidelined for three games with an injury but is expected to return Saturday.

When Sam Farrell visited the University of Florida on her women's lacrosse recruiting trip three years ago, there wasn't much to see. No lacrosse facility. No locker rooms. No team. No tradition. Coach Amanda O'Leary didn't even have an assistant coach. Nevertheless, the Severna Park graduate did see a bright future for lacrosse in Gainesville. "They had a plan and a dream, and they just asked us to trust them," Farrell said of O'Leary and Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley, "so seeing their plan and having faith in them and trusting that that was going to happen was all we had to do. We all just came in and trusted them, and we exceeded our expectations, for sure.

Maggie Morrison scored a game-high 14 points to power No. 2 Archbishop Spalding past Perry Hall, 52-30, at the Basketball Academy on Saturday at Morgan State. The Cavaliers (16-2) have won three straight, and the Gators have lost the past two. Spalding led 19-11 at the half and outscored Perry Hall 19-11 during the third quarter. Boys Ballou (D.C.) 59, No. 3 City 52: Jordan Lathem had a game-high 21 points as the Knights (10-1) suffered their first loss of the season at the Basketball Academy.

On a blustery afternoon at Reservoir High on Thursday, unpredictable gusts of wind effected runners' times, and several high profile disqualifications altered the landscape of the meet. In the end, though, the strongest competitors, and teams, won. The Mount Hebron girls carried over their success from the indoor season, led by Michaela Wilkins' four victories. The Reservoir boys, led by Timmy Usher's wins in the 400 meters and 800 meters, took the title on their home track. Usher almost ended the meet with an exclamation point, anchoring the 4x400 relay that at first appeared to break a school record with its first place finish.

If you're a fan of the Florida Gators, the word is "whew."Years of trouble, tension, turnover and turmoil in the athletic department finally appear to be ending. If the lessons have been learned that should have been learned the future looks bright. But that's a big "if" in Gatorland, where obsessive desire to win causes some to lose their moral compass.The worst of the sanctions announced by the NCAA yesterday was the ban on a bowl appearance this season. That stings. The Gators, 2-0 and ranked 19th by The Associated Press, appear good enough to have qualified for at least a mid-level bowl and perhaps better.

Reaching last year's state final boosted Perry Hall girls soccer nTC into unfamiliar territory this fall.Nearly every starter returns, so little has changed about the Gators' physical game. But it's a whole different ballgame when it comes to the mental aspect -- how the No. 3 Gators handle their newfound status as a marked team."People are really looking to beat us," said All-Metro center halfback Jessa Phoebus. "We've never been in that situation before. You can definitely tell there's going to be more pressure.

Seton Keough coach Jim Stromberg preaches defense over and over to his players.Last night, they rewarded him.The host and seventh-ranked Gators (21-1, 11-1) held St. Mary's scoreless 12 straight trips down the floor and went on a 19-0 run, to defeat the No. 13 Saints, 55-44, in a Catholic League game.The run was led by junior Melanie Morris, who scored 17 of her 22 points in the fourth quarter, with all but six coming from the foul line.The Gators held St. Mary's scoreless for more than nine minutes in the second half.

After two consecutive losing seasons, basketball is fun again at Seton Keough.The players are enjoying themselves and so is first-year coach Mike Mohler, who has kept his team loose by finding humor in even the tensest situations.In an early season meeting with then-No. 3 Mount Hebron, for instance, Seton Keough trailed by one point with five minutes remaining.As a Mount Hebron player prepared to shoot a one-and-one, Mohler looked at his players on the bench and asked: "Are you all nervous?

Here we go again. What would a college football season be without a little controversy in the polls? Based on what happened this week, this year might even be wilder than last season.You might not have noticed -- Tom Osborne barely did -- but Nebraska slipped ahead of Florida in the Associated Press poll of writers and broadcasters.That was after the Gators pummeled New Mexico State, 70-21, in their first game while the Cornhuskers were idle after a 31-0 victory over then-24th-ranked West Virginia in the Kickoff Classic.

A. L. Gators may not actually be located in a southern swamp, but at least this Florida-themed bar has a low elevation address near the Chesapeake Bay.And even though it is not all that long a drive from Baltimore to Riviera Beach, the trip through the landfill-and-marina terrain of northern Anne Arundel County seems to take you far from the city.Not that the destination is entirely unfamiliar. A. L. Gators, which holds 1,000 people, occupies the site of what was once the rock club Network.

Shannon Gilroy, Florida Freshman, Northport , N.Y., midfielder In Saturday's American Lacrosse Conference tournament final, Gilroy single-handedly matched Northwestern with seven goals in the Gators' 14-7 victory that earned the third-year program the No. 1 ranking and its first No. 1 seed for the NCAA tournament. The defending national champions had allowed an average of just 7.3 goals, and Gilroy matched or exceeded the offensive output of 12 Wildcats opponents.

Perry Hall's varsity and JV girls lacrosse teams will wear red this Friday as they raise funds for the American Heart Association and honor Breanna Sudano, a Gators field hockey player who collapsed during a JV game in September. Sudano's life was saved through CPR at the field, then an operation at Maryland Children's Hospital by Dr. Sunjay Kaushal after she was diagnosed with anomalous coronary artery disease -- a condition she was born with but didn't know she had. From a news release sent out Wednesday: On Friday, starting at 5 p.m., the JV and varsity lacrosse teams at Perry Hall will honor Breanna with a "Red Out" game where they will all wear red in her honor. The girls play a fundraiser game every year.

Seton Keough has the luxury of being able to march out two pitchers in Robi Zimmerman and Hannah Tavik who routinely dominate the opposition. In Friday's Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland showdown with third-ranked Mercy, it was Tavik's turn to take the ball, and she responded with another stellar outing in the second-ranked Gators' 3-0 victory. Tavik allowed just two hits over seven innings with seven strikeouts and no walks, giving visiting Seton Keough sole possession of first place in the IAAM A Conference midway through the season with a 4-0 record (7-1 overall)

Johns Hopkins' women's lacrosse team executed the perfect strategy Saturday against No. 4 Florida, slowing the pace and keeping the speedy Gators from turning the game into a track meet. Unfortunately for the No. 18 Blue Jays, a handful of untimely mistakes doomed the potential upset. The Blue Jays battled the Gators to double overtime, but Nora Barry scored the game winner on a free position 58 seconds into sudden death for a 13-12 Florida victory in an American Lacrosse Conference game at Homewood Field.

When Florida's women's lacrosse team plays at Johns Hopkins Saturday, it will be more like a home game for about half the Gators' roster. Thirteen players hail from Maryland and 11 of them played at Baltimore area high schools. The most recent Gators starting lineup includes Ashley Bruns from Mount Hebron; Brittany Dashiell, John Carroll; Sam Farrell, Severna Park; Haydon Judge, St. Mary's; Kayla Stolins, Loch Raven; and Emily Dohony, Hereford. All-American Kitty Cullen, McDonogh, has been sidelined for three games with an injury but is expected to return Saturday.

After losing to No. 14 John Carroll by one goal in overtime of Wednesday's season opener, Maryvale's girls lacrosse players must have felt stuck in a Groundhog Day funk. The No. 12 Lions had suffered three of their past four losses by one goal - two in overtime - and they realized they needed to wake up and stop repeating that outcome or they could pretty quickly fall out of contention in the highly competitive Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference. Friday afternoon, the Lions broke the pattern, turning a tie game with 16 minutes left into a 16-10 win at No. 5 St. Paul's.

Perry Hall assistant football coach Robert Hruz, a 1991 alumnus, has been named the school's new varsity coach. He replaces Joe Stoy, who retired after last season. Hruz, an assistant coach at Perry Hall for seven years, worked as defensive coordinator the last two years. The Towson University graduate was a fullback and linebacker for the Gators when they won the 1988-89 Class 3A-4A Baltimore County championship. Pub Date: 3/11/99

The post-game comments of St. Mary's senior forward Tara Foran may have been understated, but they provided a more accurate depiction of yesterday's game against Seton Keough than the scoreboard."

The look on McDonogh guard Tiersa Winder's face mixed joy with a little bit of awe after the No. 2 Eagles defeated Seton Keough, 60-40, Thursday night to earn a berth in the Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference girls basketball final. The Eagles (25-1) haven't been to a championship game since 2007 and they haven't won one since 1999, but their semifinal victory sends them into Saturday's 5 p.m. title game at UMBC against defending champion and No. 5 Archbishop Spalding.

Reservoir made just one mistake and it cost the Gators a chance to defend their state title. Huntingtown scored with 16 minutes left in the state Class 3A semifinal Saturday, Nov. 12 at the Essex campus of the Community College of Baltimore County, to claim a 1-0 win and move onto the state championship game next weekend. The Hurricanes will play Urbana, a 1-0 winner over C.M. Wright, in the other semifinal. Victoria Bellucci scored her 14th goal this season, sending a pass from Micaela Antzoulatos into the lower far corner, for the game-winner.