Hopkins Team

ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. -- The end of the latest NCAA tournament run for the Johns Hopkins women's basketball team might have been the least surprising of its past five. Yesterday's 77-53 loss at No. 2 seed Elizabethtown in the second round of the Division III playoffs finished a season in which third-seeded Hopkins achieved more than most had thought possible.That takes the sting off 27 turnovers and a second half that saw Elizabethtown's Blue Jays (25-3) outscore the Hopkins variety 46-27. Carmen Chiles, who scored 15 of her game-high 22 points over the final 16 minutes, paced the victory.

ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. -- The end of the latest NCAA tournament run for the Johns Hopkins women's basketball team might have been the least surprising of its past five. Yesterday's 77-53 loss at No. 2 seed Elizabethtown in the second round of the Division III playoffs finished a season in which third-seeded Hopkins achieved more than most had thought possible.That takes the sting off 27 turnovers and a second half that saw Elizabethtown's Blue Jays (25-3) outscore the Hopkins variety 46-27. Carmen Chiles, who scored 15 of her game-high 22 points over the final 16 minutes, paced the victory.

Until the season is over, Nancy Blank will not know whether her team is much different from women's basketball teams she has coached at Johns Hopkins in recent years.With a 67-20 record over the past three seasons, the Blue Jays have been good and talented, but earlier-than-hoped-for exits in the NCAA tournament proved that good and talented wasn't enough.Once again, good and talented is a proper way to describe the Hopkins team, which has been brilliant so far, earning a No. 4 ranking in Division III from the Women's Basketball Coaches Association and a No. 1 ranking in the Mid-Atlantic region by the NCAA, compiling a 17-2 record and a commanding lead in the Centennial Conference.

IN TWO weeks, the eyes of the world's lacrosse fans will be on Baltimore, the internationally recognized "mecca of lacrosse," the largest event in the history of the sport will be held at Johns Hopkins University's Homewood Field July 16-24.A paid attendance of 70,000 fans is expected to jam Hopkins' newly expanded grandstands for an eight-day tournament featuring teams from the 11 member nations of the International Lacrosse Federation. Joining the defending champion Team USA (boasting a large contingent of local talent)

It may be the age of plastic money, plastic explosives and plastic surgery, but here's something you probably hadn't thought of:Plastic batteries.Johns Hopkins University engineers have developed a plastic battery that is as thin as a credit card and even more flexible. The Air Force has been sponsoring the research in hopes of getting a lightweight, cheap and versatile power source for satellites and weapons.But such a product could also have enormous commercial potential, a prospect sure to be boosted by today's announcement that Popular Science magazine deems the battery one of the top 100 new products, technology developments and scientific achievements of the year.

It used to be that coaching football at Notre Dame was, at once, the best and the worst job in the country.It was the best because of the school's tradition and following and its attractiveness to recruits.It was the worst because of the high expectations. The Irish were expected to win every game. The alumni, subway and otherwise, would accept no less.Lou Holtz understood that when he left Minnesota to go to Notre Dame in 1986. By 1988, he had developed a team that did win every game (12-0)

In yesterday's editions, there was an incorrect reference to the last NCAA Division I men's lacrosse team to go undefeated. The last unbeaten team was North Carolina (16-0) in 1991.+ The Sun regrets the errors.Towson State lacrosse coach Carl Runk could hold his laughter no longer."Tony Seaman says if the Blue Jays stay healthy, they should be competitive. Right," a cynical Runk said two months ago about the Johns Hopkins coach's analysis at a preseason news conference. "Who is he kidding?

When two of the great singers of our time, Jose Carreras and Marilyn Horne, sing together tonight at Wolf Trap for the benefit of leukemia-related foundations, the extraordinary concert will have personal significance for me. Twenty-five years ago I was one of the first leukemia marrow-transplant donors.Both singers have volunteered for personal reasons. Miss Horne's father died of leukemia. A marrow transplant in 1987 enabled Mr. Carreras to survive acute lymphoblastic leukemia. A quarter-century ago when my sister contracted this same leukemia, it was a quick death sentence.

When the final gun sounded at Virginia's 15-9 lacrosse upset of Johns Hopkins at Charlottesville, Va., last weekend, there was speculation galore.Did Hopkins suffer a letdown? Has Virginia lived up to its potential -- and will this give the Cavaliers the confidence to go on and contend for the Division I championship? Was Hopkins overrated at No. 1 in last week's USILA poll?The most insightful words were spoken by a young North Carolina assistant coach, Baltimore native Robby Russell."It doesn't matter," said Russell, who was scouting the Hopkins team he and the Tar Heels will face this Saturday at Homewood.

Things are heating up already for Saturday night's lacrosse rematch between Johns Hopkins and Towson State at Towson's Minnegan Stadium in the NCAA quarterfinals.Hopkins, the No. 5 seed, advanced to that round yesterday by beating No. 12 seed Notre Dame, 15-7, in the first round at Homewood.The Blue Jays were sloppy in spots, but their coach, Tony Seaman, was not concerned."We're playing Saturday," Seaman said, getting right to the heart of the matter.Towson, which beat Hopkins, 14-13, in the final second of play at Homewood nine days ago, is the No. 4 seed.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass.-- --Coach Dave Pietramala's voice cracked, and he fought hard to hold back his emotions. After Johns Hopkins' hard-fought 13-10 loss to rival Syracuse yesterday in the NCAA Division I men's lacrosse title game at Gillette Stadium, Pietramala had to say farewell to a senior class that had become special to him and to the university. Hopkins has one of the game's most storied histories, and the Blue Jays will always draw a lot of the nation's top recruits, but it could take them a year or two to replace the Class of 2008.

It is not as experienced or airtight as it was two years ago. Back then, the defense was dotted with All-Americans and typically set the tone for a Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse team that went undefeated and won the school's first NCAA title since 1987. This year's Blue Jays defense has been shaped in part by youth, injuries, changing roles, an inspirational comeback story, and an evolution that included some serious stumbles in the early going. And one of the reasons the third-seeded Blue Jays (11-4)

AKAM, Cameroon -- The glow from the cooking fire danced on the walls of the smoky hut, and Luci Mbala knelt on the dirt floor to prepare dinner with the practiced swing of a machete. She was making a favorite meal for her family of 11, deep in the West African forest. Her husband, Junior, had come home holding a monkey with white-milk-mustache lips, olive-brown fur and, now, a red patch from Junior's shotgun blast. She'll fry up the meat, add some salt, pepper, beef stock and bush mangos, then boil it into a stew.

A March 15 loss at Syracuse means that Johns Hopkins lacrosse can't achieve perfection like the Dolphins did in 1972, but the top-ranked Blue Jays resemble Miami at the height of its NFL power in at least one respect. They've got a No-Name Defense. Hopkins will renew hostilities with Maryland for the 99th time today (8 p.m., Channel 2) at Byrd Stadium in College Park. The home team has allowed 7.4 goals a game, the visitors 8.3, but then the No. 4 Terps haven't played perennial NCAA finalists Princeton and Syracuse like the Blue Jays have.

Rochester (0-1) at Johns Hopkins (1-0) Site: Homewood Field Time: Noon Series: Hopkins leads, 1-0 Last week: Hopkins defeated Washington & Lee, 21-14, in OT; Rochester lost to St. John Fisher, 38-20. Outlook: This is the first of three straight home games for a Hopkins team that used senior QB Rob Fernand's late heroics to dump Washington & Lee last week. The Blue Jays won even though their defense gave up a touchdown pass for the first time since the final game of 2000. Hopkins has been tough to beat in September since 1995, compiling an 18-7 record.

As far as medical diagnostic devices go, magnetic resonance imaging is tough to beat. The technology, in use less than 20 years, has unquestionably improved the ability of physicians to make accurate diagnoses of a range of diseases affecting organs and other soft tissues, say experts. Now, after almost five years of research, a team of Johns Hopkins University doctors and bioengineers have come up with a way to make MRI even more helpful to medicine and somewhat less arduous for patients.

ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. -- The end of the latest NCAA tournament run for the Johns Hopkins women's basketball team might have been the least surprising of its past five. Yesterday's 77-53 loss at No. 2 seed Elizabethtown in the second round of the Division III playoffs finished a season in which third-seeded Hopkins achieved more than most had thought possible.That takes the sting off 27 turnovers and a second half that saw Elizabethtown's Blue Jays (25-3) outscore the Hopkins variety 46-27. Carmen Chiles, who scored 15 of her game-high 22 points over the final 16 minutes, paced the victory.

ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. -- The end of the latest NCAA tournament run for the Johns Hopkins women's basketball team might have been the least surprising of its past five. Yesterday's 77-53 loss at No. 2 seed Elizabethtown in the second round of the Division III playoffs finished a season in which third-seeded Hopkins achieved more than most had thought possible.That takes the sting off 27 turnovers and a second half that saw Elizabethtown's Blue Jays (25-3) outscore the Hopkins variety 46-27. Carmen Chiles, who scored 15 of her game-high 22 points over the final 16 minutes, paced the victory.

IN TWO weeks, the eyes of the world's lacrosse fans will be on Baltimore, the internationally recognized "mecca of lacrosse," the largest event in the history of the sport will be held at Johns Hopkins University's Homewood Field July 16-24.A paid attendance of 70,000 fans is expected to jam Hopkins' newly expanded grandstands for an eight-day tournament featuring teams from the 11 member nations of the International Lacrosse Federation. Joining the defending champion Team USA (boasting a large contingent of local talent)

Until the season is over, Nancy Blank will not know whether her team is much different from women's basketball teams she has coached at Johns Hopkins in recent years.With a 67-20 record over the past three seasons, the Blue Jays have been good and talented, but earlier-than-hoped-for exits in the NCAA tournament proved that good and talented wasn't enough.Once again, good and talented is a proper way to describe the Hopkins team, which has been brilliant so far, earning a No. 4 ranking in Division III from the Women's Basketball Coaches Association and a No. 1 ranking in the Mid-Atlantic region by the NCAA, compiling a 17-2 record and a commanding lead in the Centennial Conference.