Halford

A veteran county firefighter and emergency medical technician accused of punching an unruly 12-year-old patient in the face will be fired, Fire Department administrator Stephen D. Halford said yesterday.Mr. Halford approved a recommendation from the Fire Department's hearing board calling for the dismissal of Michael L. Swain.The hearing board earlier this week found the six-year veteran guilty of departmental charges of conduct unbecoming a Fire Department employee, using offensive language and behaving discourteously to the public.

Mitch Whitely's top-ranked St. Paul's boys lacrosse team led by only one goal against sixth-ranked Gilman when he delivered his good-news, bad-news speech at halftime. "That we're winning and playing horrible is good news," he said. "Bad news is, we're playing horrible." The Crusaders responded with six goals in the third period, routing the defending Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference champions, 11-4, in a nondivisional game. Grant Halford (four goals, one assist)

Judas Priest When: Sunday, Dec. 9, 7:30 p.m.Where: Capital CentreTickets: $19.50Call: 481-6000 for tickets, 792-7490 for information. Rob Halford is a believer.He believes in his band, Judas Priest, the English heavy-metal outfit he has fronted for almost 20 years (and which he'll bring to the Capital Centre Sunday). He believes in his fans, whose high-decibel, fist-pumping enthusiasm has helped Judas Priest become one of the genre's most enduring acts.Above all, he believes in heavy metal, a style of music he feels is unjustly maligned.

Fires are not what they used to be in Anne Arundel County. As a result, rank and file firefighters aren't getting on-the-job training they need to become officers as quickly as they used to, fire officials said."

It was supposed to be the Towson men's lacrosse team that needed this game. The Tigers were the ones playing for their NCAA lives. But from the opening faceoff, it was Loyola that appeared to be more motivated. And that was reflected on the scoreboard, as the third-ranked Greyhounds dominated the eighth-ranked Tigers, 15-7, yesterday in a Colonial Athletic Association game before 2,054 fans at Minnegan Stadium. Junior goalie Mark Bloomquist, who dislocated a finger in practice on Thursday, was spectacular in making 18 saves for the Greyhounds, and a Loyola offense, which has sputtered at times this year, got a huge lift from a couple of freshmen and the usual gutty performance from senior Michael Sullivan.

Unless more damaging facts about their participation in the scandal that brought an end to the lacrosse season at St. Paul's are uncovered, the Crusaders' top seniors will not lose college scholarships. After a majority of its varsity viewed a video a junior varsity player secretly made of himself having sex with a girl from another area private school, the St. Paul's administration canceled the season for the area's No. 1 team. Attackman Brendan Gill and midfielder Jack de- Villiers, two of the nation's top prospects, signed letters of intent with Virginia, where Gill would be united with his brother Conor.

Mayor Martin O'Malley easily won a second term in yesterday's election as city voters gave him a decisive victory that firmly establishes him as Baltimore's pre-eminent power broker and positions him to launch a serious bid for governor. After one term as mayor, the 41-year-old former prosecutor and city councilman has risen from a local political long shot in 1999 to what some polls suggest is the state Democratic Party's best hope at recapturing the governorship in 2006 from Republican Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. "The fact that nobody with any real resources ran against him means he's unchallengeable in Baltimore," said Matthew A. Crenson, a Johns Hopkins University political scientist.

The Western girls and Mervo's boys repeated as team champions in yesterday's Baltimore City cross country meet at Herring Run Park. However, Mervo had a much tougher time running away with the championship than the Doves did. Latosha Wallace won the individual title for Western, taking first place in a time of 22 minutes, 12 seconds, ahead of teammate Alicia Williams (22:27). The Doves placed all five of their scoring runners in the top nine and finished with 23 points, easily outdistancing City (81)

TwoVoyeurs (Nothing/Interscope 90155)Stabbing WestwardDarkest Days (Columbia 68006)Influence is a funny thing. Celine Dion may be the most listened-to voice in the world right now, but her music has had almost no effect on the prevailing tides in popular music. Nine Inch Nails, by contrast, remains essentially a cult act, yet its work has shaped and inspired the sound of countless rock acts, from Marilyn Manson to Filter.How has NIN - or its mastermind, Trent Reznor - come to exert such influence?

Of the four straight losses St. Mary's has suffered this season, yesterday's 10-9 nail-biter at No. 3 St. Paul's may be the toughest for coach Jim Moorhead to swallow.His Saints, last year's 17-0 Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A champs, led 3-0 early but threw away the ball five times in the first period and couldn't convert their only two extra-man opportunities.No. 5-ranked St. Mary's (2-4) led 5-3 at the half only to see St. Paul's, led by Conor Gill (two goals, five assists)