Lancers

Field hockey is not usually a game of inches, but Linganore needed only about two inches to eliminate No. 8 Bel Air from the state playoffs yesterday.Early in the second half, Linganore wing Amethyst Tymoch shot a ball that cleared the goal line by about two inches. That was all the third-seeded Lancers would need for a 1-0 victory in a state Class 3A semifinal at Goucher College."The ball barely went over the line," said Bel Air link Carrie Carpenter. "Our halfback, Renee Polek, stopped it, but it was just over the line.

Ronnie McGarvey scored on runs of 61 and 54 yards in the third and fourth quarters to give Linganore (4-1, 2-0) a 14-0 win over host Liberty (3-2, 1-1) in a Central Maryland Conference game.McGarvey's runs capped a defensive struggle in which each team managed only two first downs.McGarvey finished with 124 yards rushing and Linganore with only 140 total yards.Buddy Hardesty led Liberty with just 19 yards. The Lions only had 62 total yards."We gave up two big plays and that was the difference," said Liberty coach John Magee.

Without a Baltimore team in Division II, it's easy to forget there's such a division in women's lacrosse. But a lot of folks here are following Division II closely these days because Longwood College of Farmville, Va., is ranked No. 1, and eight Baltimore-area women are members of the Lancers. With just one game left on their schedule, the Lancers (14-0) are looking for the No. 1 seed in the Division II tournament. Because there are only 28 teams in Division II, the tournament includes just four teams - the top two from the North and the top two from the South.

It took Russell DeMont of Westminster a little while to get going against Linganore. But when the 6-foot-7 forward started, he helped finish the Lancers.DeMont scored 12 of his 18 points in the final 12 minutes to help host Westminster hold off stubborn Linganore, 58-47, in the semifinals of the Westminster Holiday Classic last night.Westminster (2-4), which broke a four-game losing streak with the win, advanced to the final tonight at 8 against No. 8 Milford Mill. The Millers made it to the finals with a victory, by forfeit, over No. 20 Aberdeen.

Dunbar's dream season came to a perfect close yesterday with the first girls state basketball championship in school history. The No. 1 Poets scored the last 13 points to finally put away Linganore, 53-36, and claim the Class 2A crown at UMBC. "All the hard work paid off," said Poets senior center LaKesha Wills, who finished with 21 points and 12 rebounds. "There was a lot of people who doubted us and things didn't go our way all the time, but we stayed together as a team, as a family and we won."

Unjust accusations against Hammerman As a former vice-president of the Lancers Boys Club, I was deeply angered at the accusations made against Judge Robert I. H Hammerman by the unnamed student at Gilman School ("Gilman suspends its ties to Lancers Boys Club," Feb. 13). I have known Mr. Hammerman personally for 11 years, and he is one of the most selfless, devoted people I have ever known. Gilman School, my alma mater, handled this affair in an extraordinarily incompetent manner. Any concerns the school had should have been raised privately with Mr. Hammerman.

NEW MARKET - Everything is clicking for the North Carroll Panthers boys basketball team these days. They're winning at home, on the road, and against teams few thought they could beat. Last night at Linganore, the Panthers (8-4 overall, 4-1 league) avoided a feared letdown following a significant upset of South Carroll last Friday, and crushed the Lancers, 75-63, behind some outstanding perimeter shooting to record their fifth straight victory. They are in second place in the Central Maryland Conference behind Thomas Johnson.

Centennial's players had one collective thought before yesterday's field hockey game against Linganore."Revenge -- that's all we had on our minds," said Eagles link Kim May. "They knocked us out of it last year, but they barely knocked us out (2-1). We knew this was our chance for revenge and we knew we had the strength."And revenge was sweet for the No. 3 Eagles (13-0). Emily Ward scored three goals in the 4-0 victory over the Lancers, the defending state Class 3A co-champs, in a North region semifinal.

Anyone who thought No. 3 Centennial would cruise to a regional title after beating South Carroll in the opening round underestimated Linganore.Last night, the Lancers showed Centennial a tough defensive side that kept the game close until the final six minutes. Not until Jen Coulson added an insurance goal to Michelle Clare's earlier score did the Eagles breathe easily.With the 2-0 victory over Linganore last night at South Carroll, the Eagles (16-0) earned the Class 3A-4A West regional championship.

Nancy Ferguson has engineered some amazing feats while coaching at Fallston, but she would have had to be a magician to pull this off.Short of pulling four more Karen Tiedemanns out of her hat, Ferguson could find nothing to counter Linganore and its exceptional senior combination of Cara Consuegra and Mimi Ritter.The Iowa-bound Consuegra had a triple double -- 23 points, 18 rebounds, 10 assists -- and Georgetown-bound Ritter had 16 points as the Lancers won their 52nd in a row, 71-43, over No. 12 Fallston (21-3)