Ivy League

Yale University football coach Carm Cozza always has been reluctant to play sophomores. Unless you were the second coming of Walter Camp, Albie Booth, Larry Kelley, Clint Frank or Calvin Hill, you waited your turn behind more established players.Now, in his 31st year in New Haven, Conn., 29th as head coach, Cozza will be using freshmen.Freshmen? On the varsity? We're talking blasphemy.Well, maybe in the past, but Cozza has to accept that freshmen are eligible to play on the varsity for the first time since the Ivy League was formally founded in 1956.

Erica Holland was in sixth grade when she asked a minority-program coordinator at Annapolis Middle School whether she knew of any good math camps. "That's the only time a kid has ever asked if [she] could spend the summer doing math," said Shanita Spencer, now an AVID instructor at Annapolis High School. Though she was living in subsidized housing, Holland had set her sights on an Ivy League education and decided that she needed to improve her math skills. "Ever since I was young, I knew education was key to getting out," said Holland, now 18. That drive and determination attracted not one but two mentors who helped steer Holland into a program that helps minorities obtain financial aid at prep schools and navigate college applications.

Senior midfielder Linda Ackermann scored three goals and had two assists as Salisbury captured its third straight Capital Athletic Conference championship in women's lacrosse with a 16-8 victory over Goucher yesterday. The Sea Gulls (12-0) are No. 1 in Division III and have won 23 of their past 24 games dating back to last season. The visiting Gophers (8-7) were led by freshman Emily Blatter's three goals and one assist. No. 4 Dartmouth 12, No. 3 Princeton 9: The win was the first for the host Big Green (13-0, 7-0)

Ravens center Matt Birk is a Harvard man. There is a decent chance you already knew this. In fact, if you know anything about him beyond his abilities as a football player, it's probably that he graduated from Harvard. This is, at least in part, because people tend to bring it up when they talk about Birk, a six-time Pro Bowl selection entering his 12th NFL season, his first with the Ravens after leaving the Minnesota Vikings as a free agent. Birk's Ivy League education - he graduated in 1998 with a degree in economics - is usually mentioned with playful disbelief or mock surprise, as if it had not occurred to anyone that it was possible for NFL players to come from Harvard.

PHILADELPHIA - Dick Vitale was nowhere to be found. Nor were any former high school All-Americans and future NBA millionaires. They weren't missed here last night, where college basketball's most consistent rivalry was played out in one of the sport's most venerable gymnasiums. That Penn beat Princeton, 64-48, at the Palestra wasn't much of a surprise, considering that the Quakers pounded the Tigers by 24 points over in New Jersey last month. That they could wind up playing again - on Saturday, for a trip to the NCAA tournament - will only add to the lore.

Adom Crew is going to the NCAA soccer tournament in high style this season for Brown University. Long gone are the feelings of trepidation from his freshman season, when he was part of the team's run to the Division I quarterfinals. Crew (River Hill) is the Ivy League's leading scorer this season with nine goals and two assists for 20 points. The senior team captain just moved into 10th place on Brown's career goal-scoring list with 24, and he is 12th all-time in points (58). "I feel so much more like a part of the team this year," said Crew, who scored Brown's goal in Saturday's 1-1 tie with Yale that clinched the school's 20th NCAA tournament bid. Brown has won or shared 17 Ivy League titles, including seven of the past 10. "The soccer team is held in pretty high esteem around here," Crew said.

There might be conferences more competitive than the Ivy League has been this season. There also might be games just as compelling as the ones that will take place this weekend - and one next week - on some of the league's storied campuses. But is there any race more compelling than the one going on among Princeton, Yale and Penn? Going into tonight, Princeton leads the league with a 9-2 record, but must finish out with road games at Cornell, Columbia and Penn. Yale is 9-3, and plays at home this weekend against Harvard and Dartmouth.

Sam Snow scored the game-winner with 56 seconds left in overtime as the visiting Fairfield men's lacrosse team upset top-ranked Denver, 10-9, Saturday in front of an announced 2,520 at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium. The Stags (8-5, 4-2 Eastern College Athletic Conference) recorded the program's first win over a No. 1 team. The victory gives the Stags a spot in the ECAC championship May 2-4 at Hobart. Denver fell to 10-3 overall and 5-1 in league play. Michael Roe won the opening faceoff of overtime and Fairfield called a timeout.

Sophomore attackman Ryan Boyle, the quarterback of a Princeton team that won an eighth straight league championship and earned a first-round bye in the NCAA lacrosse tournament, was named the Ivy League Men's Lacrosse Player of the Year, after scoring 17 goals and handing out 27 assists. Boyle was joined on the first team by former Gilman and current Princeton teammate Damien Davis. Other local players that made the team were Brad Dumont (Princeton, McDonogh) and Scott Marimow (Penn, St. Paul's)

Matt Gibson, Yale Senior, Point Lookout, N.Y., attackman Gibson powered the Bulldogs to their first NCAA tournament appearance since 1992 by leading them to the Ivy League tournament title. The 5-foot-10, 175-pound attackman racked up 14 points in victories over Cornell and Princeton in the tournament. Gibson recorded eight assists in Yale's 14-10 defeat of the Big Red in the semifinals, which tied the single-game school record for assists set by Jason O'Neill in 1990.