Lancers

MONROVIA - Coach Charles Shoemaker wasn't overly concerned when his Wilde Lake boys cross country team dropped a tri-meet to then-No. 7 River Hill and unranked Centennial nearly two weeks ago. After all, his top five runners missed the Oct. 1 meet to either heal some nagging injuries or preserve their energy for the Howard County and Class 3A state championships. But when the Wildecats are at full strength, they can compete with some of the state's best teams as they proved with a third-place finish at the 3.1-mile Lancer Invitational at Kemptown Park yesterday.

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.

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.

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.

When the erstwhile Lancers Boys Club reconvenes in the fall, it will have something it has not had in more than half a century of existence: Girls. The independent youth leadership and public service organization - a local institution whose alumni of about 3,000 include such luminaries as former Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, former Alex. Brown chief executive officer - will also have a new name. It will be called simply The Lancers Club. "I strongly believe that this move will bring new vitality to the club," said retired Baltimore Circuit Judge Robert I. H. Hammerman, the club's founder and guiding force, in a letter to members.

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.

Three months after suspending ties with Lancers Boys Club after a student's allegation against the club's founder, retired Judge Robert I. H. Hammerman, North Baltimore's Gilman School has resumed its ties to the organization. "After careful review of the situation we believe that Gilman should now renew its relationship with the Lancers," Headmaster Archibald R. Montgomery IV wrote in a letter sent yesterday to parents of Gilman students. Gilman denied the club use of its facilities in February, after a senior said during an assembly speech that Hammerman had given him inappropriate glances while they showered after a round of tennis four years ago at the Johns Hopkins University.

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."

The headmaster of one of Baltimore's most prestigious boys schools said yesterday that he will resign next year, capping a tenure that has at times put him in the spotlight of controversy. Archibald R. Montgomery IV made the announcement less than a month after perhaps the most turbulent incident he faced in eight years as headmaster of Gilman School. Montgomery, 47, who will leave July 1, 2001, had decided last month to temporarily bar the noted Lancers Boys Club from campus in the wake of a student's allegation against its founder, Robert I. H. Hammerman, a retired Baltimore Circuit Court judge.

Free-lancers of the world, Web agencies want you. They're offering to change your status to "virtual employee." You'd retain your independence while getting access to employee benefits. But how well this is going to work remains an unsettled area of law. And, as always, you have to beware of hype. If you turn "virtual," your work life doesn't change. You continue finding your own clients, just as before. But instead of billing them yourself, the agency bills them for you. The client pays the agency and then the agency pays you. Based on this arrangement, the agency calls you an employee.