Larry Washington

The Loyola-Towson State basketball game coming up Monday night at the Towson Center may be the best local matchup of the season. Both teams are rolling right now.Loyola has upset Iona and Siena in its last two starts. That's even more impressive than the Greyhounds' midseason, back-to-back wins last year over Army and Navy.Loyola appears to have turned the corner under second-year coach Tom Schneider. The win over Iona, whose talent was clearly superior, was a coaching victory for Schneider.

Wilde Lake caught unbeaten Overlea without top gun Bernard Hopkins (ankle injury), but it took some late heroics from Joey Guyton (22 points) to hold off the Falcons, 80-77, in the state Class 2A/Region II semifinals yesterday.Guyton, who has signed to play football for Delaware, scored six straight points after Overlea had trimmed a 21-point lead to six in the fourth period."It has been like this all year, but somehow we manage to pull it out," said Guyton, a defensive back for the state Class 2A football champions last fall.

Gordy Combs didn't want to talk about it much until it became official, fearing a jinx. He wasn't going to make plans, only to have them go up in smoke, and before the season's first game.Combs, entering his fourth season as Towson State's football coach, had said he wouldn't believe that Larry Washington was suiting up for the Tigers until "we're walking down the field to play Butler and he's right next to me and I'm saying, 'OK, you're going to get the ball 25 times today.' "That image soon will become a reality.

COLLEGE PARK -- Two hundred ninety-two yards.One touchdown.An afternoon's work in high school is all Larry Washington has to show for his college football career. Maryland will celebrate homecoming tomorrow, but Washington wants no part of the pageant. His Terps days are over, disrupted by an arrest, an injury, wavering incentive and -- primary in his view -- a coaching change.His controversial departure from the team came in August. Washington is 25 pounds over his desired playing weight, but right now he's more concerned with raising his grade-point average to a level that will allow him to transfer and play elsewhere next season.

COLLEGE PARK -- It was a shortcoming that was overlooked in the angst over a defense and kicking game that ranked as the worst among the nation's 106 Division I-A teams.For all the yardage the passing game piled up last year, Maryland finished last in the Atlantic Coast Conference in rushing, netting a little more than 92 yards per game.Mark Mason might make the Dallas Cowboys' developmental squad, but 1993 was his third straight injury-filled season as the superback in the Terps' one-back offense.

COLLEGE PARK -- The week before the opening game against Virginia, Larry Washington approached Maryland running backs coach Paul Castonia with a question."

COLLEGE PARK -- Simply because he's strong and solid, it doesn't mean Larry Washington will wind up as a fullback at Maryland.Offensive coordinator Tony Whittlesey was talking about Washington and other blue-chippers at a news conference after the Terps claimed 20 high school hotshots on the first day of the NCAA's national signing period Wednesday.Whittlesey made it clear that Washington, the 5-foot-11, 198-pounder from Randallstown High, and the 6-foot, 200-pound Raphael Wall of Wilde Lake weren't wooed nationwide with the idea of converting them to blocking fullbacks.

The most exciting thing in Baltimore sports this summer is taking place at the turnstiles.The Orioles, though hopelessly out of the race in sixth place in the American League East, are on a course to draw 2.5 million customers. Maybe more.Even if they do, however, that will not be any sort of league record for drawing great crowds despite having a low finish.Bob Miller, of the Orioles' public relations department, went through his records yesterday and determined that even if the O's finish sixth -- 2.5 million would fall short of a California Angels record.

It's not easy to find positive things to say about the University of Maryland football team, which is 0-4 and off to the school's worst start in more than two decades.Two good things, however, are the play of a pair of Baltimore area products -- Jaime Flores and Larry Washington. Both have been honored for their hard hitting in the 49-13 loss at Penn State last week. As football people know, if you'll hit hard against Penn State, you'll hit hard against anybody.Flores, a junior outside linebacker from Poly who lives in Fells Point, won the Hammer Award for the hardest hit by a Maryland defensive player against the Nittany Lions.

MARYLANDQuarterbacks* John Kaleo -- 6-1, 180, Bowie High, Montgomer College-Rockville . . . 1990 National Junior College Player of the Year . . . Completed 61 percent of his passes for 2,963 yards (first among nation's JC QBs) and 32 TDs to lead Montgomery to national JUCO championship game where it lost to Coffeyville of Kansas and finished 10-1 . . . Only nine interceptions in 304 attempts . . . Chose Maryland over Clemson, North Carolina and Hawaii . . . Has two years of eligibility left.