Long Island

NEW YORK -- Joe Griffin scored 23 points, 16 in the second half, as Long Island University beat Mount St. Mary's, 76-71, in a Northeast Conference game last night.Jason Feeley added 16 points for the Blackbirds (7-13, 5-7). Robin Dickerson had 13 points and Matt Picinic contributed 12 points and 10 rebounds.Riley Inge had 24 points for the Mountaineers (10-10, 8-4), who dropped into third place in the conference. Chris McGuthrie had 17 points and Mike Watson had 11 points and 11 rebounds.

I know we have become a nation of such short attention spans and long-term addiction to instant gratification that asking viewers to spend even an hour with a documentary that could change the way they see the world is probably a fool's errand. But this fool is asking -- no begging -- you to see "Hard Times: Lost on Long Island," an HBO documentary premiering at 9 Monday night and repeating throughout the month on HBO and HBO2. I have not seen anything on-air, online or in print that so deftly nails one of the most important and least reported stories of our economic and political lives in this presidential election year.

NEW YORK -- Six-foot-11 freshman Randy Edney blocked a school-record 11 shots and scored 12 of his career-high 16 points in the first half, as Mount St. Mary's defeated Long Island, 110-92, in a Northeast Conference game yesterday.Guards Chris McGuthrie and Riley Inge scored 18 points each for the Mount, which had five players in double figures.The victory was the Mountaineers' third straight. Long Island has lost 12 straight.The Mountaineers (6-7, 3-3) shot 59 percent from the field.The Mount led 19-16 at the 12:08 mark and outscored the Blackbirds 13-6 over the next three minutes to take a 10-point lead.

• On a Notre Dame men's lacrosse team where everyone contributes, Clarksville's Jim Marlatt has grabbed the spotlight. The River Hill grad had a career-high five-point day in the NCAA first-round win over Yale. But it's depth that has been the key: 19 different players have hit the back of the net for the Irish, who play Virginia on Sunday in the NCAA quarterfinals. "We're just looking for the opening guy and whoever that guys is at the end of the play is going to get the goal," said Marlatt, a 2012 Big East Conference first-team honoree.

Paul Reilly scored the game-winner with 2:52 left on an assist by Christopher Armas, and Cordt Weinstien added a goal one minute later as the visiting Long Island Rough Riders defeated the Baltimore Bays, 5-3, in United States International Soccer League action yesterday at UMBC.Baltimore (2-11) led 3-1 until Weinstien scored his first goal at the 46:25 mark of the second half. Bays Tim Wittman received a red card at 47:00 for arguing a foul and Baltimore played a man down for the rest of the half.

If the Los Angeles Lakers of the mid-1980's played lacrosse, they'd undoubtedly do it in Mount Washington Lacrosse Club uniforms.Last night, lacrosse's best version of "Showtime" was on display before a capacity crowd at Norris Field, as Mount Washington crushed Long Island/Hofstra, 20-11, to finish the season undefeated and capture its third United States Club Lacrosse Association title in the past five years.On a team filled with stars, it was hard to figure out which one was the brightest for the Wolfpack last night.

The U.S. Club Lacrosse Association was right on the mark when it named Mark Millon its North Player of the Year.Only hours after team representatives announced their vote, the former Massachusetts star scored four goals to lead Long Island to an 11-9 victory over Mount Washington for the USCLA championship. The game, played in a drizzle, was the centerpiece of the 12th annual Hall of Fame Lacrosse Classic at Johns Hopkins.Millon, 23, in his first year of club lacrosse, was matched against Mount Washington's Dave Pietramala, one of the best defensemen in the world.

Long Island overcame a 14-point, second-half deficit to defeat Mount St. Mary's, 94-86, in a Northeast Conference men's game last night in New York.Charles Jones scored 33 points to help the Blackbirds keep their home record unbeaten at 7-0.The Mountaineers (10-11, 6-7) held a 52-44 lead at halftime thanks to the play of Mike Brown, who had 10 points and nine rebounds in the first half.In the second half, the Blackbirds (14-6, 11-1) trailed 71-57 after a dunk by Gerben Van Dorpe. Over the next 3: 42, however, Long Island scored 14 straight points, and Jones' layup with 6: 55 left tied the game at 76.The Blackbirds tied the score again at 84 with 4: 26 left, and the Mountaineers were held to two points over the final 3: 24 as Long Island pulled away.

EMMITSBURG -- Chris McGuthrie was supposed to be sick when Mount St. Mary's played Long Island University last night.There was nothing sick about McGuthrie's play, though.When Riley Inge got two quick fouls on him in the first two minutes, coach Jim Phelan sent McGuthrie into the game. He had been suffering with a cold and flu for days. Friday he left in the middle of practice because of the sickness.But McGuthrie scored 33 points, his high for the season, and the Mount ran off to a 103-86 victory.

There would be no frustration this year for Chesapeake I, as the girls from Anne Arundel and Howard counties won their first U.S. Women's Lacrosse Association National Schoolgirl Championship.Chesapeake rolled over Long Island I, 9-2, yesterday in the 17th annual schoolgirl title game at McDonogh.The victory made up for last year, when Chesapeake had to share the crown with South I after rain washed out the final day."It feels really good," said Chesapeake's Kellie Thompson, who won the Heather Leigh Albert Award as the top player in the tournament.

Major League Lacrosse Report: Cottle to be named Bayhawks coach The Bayhawks will hold a news conference today at 10 a.m. to announce their choice to replace Brendan Kelly as coach. Inside Lacrosse magazine is reporting that the Major League Lacrosse team has selected assistant coach and team president Dave Cottle , a former men's lacrosse coach at Maryland and Loyola College. Kelly, who owns the team, stepped down last month. Cottle, a Salisbury graduate, spent 19 years coaching at Loyola College, leading the Greyhounds to 181 wins and 14 consecutive appearances in the NCAA tournament.

As I've said before, I'm an "Accidental Hamptonite. " I belong more in the "land of genteel decay," as a colleague once described Roland Park, than in a summer playground of the rich and sometimes-famous. That said, I have just returned from my 10th summer visit to Long Island, N.Y. Again I visited close college friends and their families. One has a house in East Hampton; the other is in Sagaponack, near the site of the Hampton Classic, where she and her daughter ride each year.

After scoring five goals in the first eight minutes Saturday, the Chesapeake Bayhawks offense was ice cold the rest of the way, dropping a 15-8 game to the Long Island Lizards on a sweltering night in Annapolis. The Bayhawks (5-4) took a 5-1 lead with 7:37 to go in the first quarter, but they only scored three times in the game's final 52:37. The Lizards scored 14 times in that span to blow the game open in front of 7,793 fans at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. "We didn't play smart lacrosse," Bayhawks coach Brendan Kelly said.

All Island Media, a New York-based publisher, has acquired Pennysaver Inc., the Hanover-based publisher of the Maryland Pennysaver shopping circular, All Island Media said Wednesday. The sale price was not revealed. The Maryland Pennysaver, the largest mailed weekly shopping publication in its market, is distributed to more than 830,000 homes and businesses in suburban Baltimore and eastern Maryland. The acquisition, which closed Friday, will bring All Island Media's total corporate circulation to nearly 1.7 million.

Seniors in the forensics class at St. Paul's School scrapped the traditional blue books and delved into a real-life mystery for their final exam. Instead of an essay, they applied 21st-century tools and technology to their investigation of an unsolved 170-year-old double murder. "It's our own episode of 'Cold Case,'" said Will Stokes of Hunt Valley. "They get very lucky on TV. Our job was more tedious. " Working in teams of four in one of the Brooklandville school's co-ed classes, the students took two weeks to study the 1842 murder of Alexander and Rebecca Smith, analyze the evidence found at their Long Island farmhouse, which was the scene of the crime, and draw their conclusions based on what they discovered.

After a roller-coaster season that featured a five-game losing streak and after failing to even make the playoffs four straight years, the joy and emotion that poured out of the Bayhawks was to be expected. Rookie attackman Brian Carr oll and second-year midfielder Peet Poillon (UMBC) scored three goals apiece to lead a balanced offense, while second-year defenseman Michael Evans (Johns Hopkins) anchored a suffocating defense as a youthful Chesapeake Bayhawks squad knocked off the veteran Long Island Lizards, 13-9, in the Major League Lacrosse championship game at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. -- One of the constants of life on Long Island for the last half-century has been the steady swallowing up of farmland. Suburban development, roaring east from New York City, changed the quality of the air and water, overwhelmed old patterns of transportation and transformed the connections between people and the land. But now, here on the island's east end, there is a plot twist. To Ed Harbes, it is called opportunity. Harbes, a fifth-generation Long Island farmer, is doing quite well and wants to expand his acreage.

LEVITTOWN, N.Y. - More than 50 years ago, World War II veterans and their families swarmed to Long Island for the single-family homes and green lawns of a new, affordable, middle-class dreamland called suburbia. But these days many of their grandchildren can no longer afford to live here. With census figures showing the number of 18- to 34-year-olds on the island down 20 percent between 1990 and 2000, employers worry about a shrinking labor force, politicians fret about a declining tax base and Long Islanders debate how much change they're willing to consider to stanch the population hemorrhage.

Former Orioles outfielder Jay Gibbons confirmed last night that he will sign a contract this week with the Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League. "I'm looking forward to getting back and playing ball again," said Gibbons, who will likely start working out with the Ducks in the next couple of days. "It's been 10 weeks, so hopefully I can get out on the field some time this week." Gibbons, 31, was released by the Orioles in March several months after he admitted to using human growth hormone.

Julianne Moore is wearing little-to-no makeup and killer platform boots. And her laugh -- she laughs a lot -- is infectious. The whole casually sexy vibe is a far cry from Barbara Baekeland, the eccentric, socialite wife of a Bakelite plastics heir whose tragic life unfurls in Moore's latest feature film, Savage Grace, which opened last month. Later this summer comes Blindness, Jose Saramago's Nobel Prize-winning novel, in which she plays a more modest figure: the only sighted woman in a community stricken with a sudden, terrifying malady.