Lancers

There would be no see-saw battle, no heart-stopping comeback, and no nail-biting free throws for Westminster. Taking a 180-degree turn from their previous game against Linganore, the No. 15-ranked Owls scored 50 points in the second half and sailed to a comfortable 78-55 victory over the visiting Lancers in Westminster last night. When the two Central Maryland Conference rivals met Jan. 14, Westminster needed two free throws from senior point guard Ryan Salkeld to edge the Frederick County school, 57-55.

In Baltimore City Struever Bros. hires departing chief of east-side coalition Michael V. Seipp, who announced last week that he was resigning as executive director of the Historic East Baltimore Community Action Coalition, will begin work Nov. 20 in the rental housing division of developer Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, a company principal said yesterday. "He brings nonprofit and public experience to the table," partner Ted Rouse said of Seipp, who ran the nonprofit east-side redevelopment effort for the past five years.

In the biggest upset of the local football season, the senior quarterback threw for 422 yards and five touchdowns Friday night to lead the Owls to a 32-31 victory over Linganore, the No. 9 team in the state. He also had a 53-yard punt from the Owls' end zone with five minutes to go, which helped secure their first win over the Lancers since 2005. Cheese, 6-feet-2, 210 pounds, completed 21 of 39 passes and ran the ball 20 times for 43 yards. This season, he's 37-for-71 passing for 618 yards and nine touchdowns while rushing 33 times for 129 yards and a touchdown.

Paul Federinko had to wait a little longer than most varsity football players for his first "Friday Night Lights" experience. Until he took the field for Atholton this fall, the junior lineman had played nothing but afternoon games in his first two varsity seasons. That's how it is when you play American football in England. At Lakenheath High, a Department of Defense school on the Royal Air Force base where his mother was stationed with the United States Air Force, typical Lancers games drew about 140 fans -- if you count the 80 or so JV players.

The start to Joe Riddle 's senior season couldn't have gotten off to a much better start. “Our first game was against a very good South Carroll football team,” said Linganore coach Rick Conner . “It was 6-0 and we decided, 'OK, let's give Joe some chances.' He took a jet sweep for about 75 yards and made it 7-6. On the first play of the second half, he took a power off-tackle, bounced it and he was gone, 65 yards. The game was over, really.” Final score: Lancers 28, Cavaliers 6. Riddle's stat line that night came out to 232 yards rushing on 25 carries.

THE SPIRITUAL children of Judge Robert I.H. Hammerman gathered in the cold yesterday to bid him farewell, and found he had controlled his dying as meticulously as he controlled his courtroom, or his connection to generations of Baltimore youngsters, or his 76 years of life. On a chilly, sun-dappled morning at the Chizuk Amuno Cemetery three days after a despondent Hammerman shot himself to death, the longest-serving trial jurist in Maryland history was buried beneath a cluster of barren trees, surrounded by several hundred mourners whose lives he touched through the city's courts, and Baltimore City College, and the Lancers Club.

It's time for Stuart Berger to move onRegarding your article "School chief tires of Balto. Co. battles," (June 15), Superintendent Stuart Berger is right: He is .. an agent of change, but he is certainly not a leader.Berger came to Baltimore County full of himself and certain that he could bend the school system in any direction he chose.I am sure he felt he had the backing of the School Board. I am also sure he had no conception of the degree of support and concern for the public schools held by the majority of the county's citizens.

Kenneth J. Strong doesn't look like the forceful leader of the castle rebellion that former Baltimore Department of Public Works officials claimed he was in their federal trial last week. The bookish former city solid waste director, whom friends label an idealist, was pointed to as the instigator of an insurrection against his one-time bosses because he expressed concerns over shoddy work on a landfill repair contract. Strong's complaints led to his firing, a federal grand jury probe of the agency and, as the jury concluded, department retaliation against two former colleagues who sided with him. The episode also cost him his long friendship with former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke.

So, an elderly man, well-known in his community, heads a charitable organization to serve young boys. Through that organization, he picks out certain boys to serve his sexual interests. His modus operandi is to give special attention to the boys he has chosen, get them alone and contrive a way to get them in a shower. A few people know of his disgraceful activities but don't have the moral backbone to speak up. Sounds exactly like a certain local judge and the Lancers boys club here in Baltimore about a decade ago. In that case, apparently, the elderly man satisfied himself just looking at the naked little boys.

One night, the Longwood Lancers are going to beat a team of Maryland's caliber. Longwood coach Mike Gillian says he senses such an upset is coming. But the Terps began Tuesday night with a flurry of baskets, steals and emphatic blocks. As Maryland bolted to a 29-point, first-half lead, the message couldn't have been clearer -- not here, not tonight, not against the Terps, who prevailed, 106-55. Maryland recorded its most first-half points (57) since scoring 58 against St. John's in 2006.