Man Down

On a snowy afternoon, on the edge of an Alpine ridge on the Italy-Austria border, a silhouette materializes in the mist: a concrete obelisk marking the place where a man lay down to die 5,300 years ago. Today's uncomfortable weather hints at conditions the man may have faced in his final hours. Although no one can be certain, it is believed he was surprised by a storm and sought refuge in a small gully. He leaned his backpack against a rock and put his head on a stone pillow to wait for the weather to clear.

Francis Scott Key accomplished something no other Carroll County school had been able to do since mid-October 1994 and ended years of frustration in the process when it scored two minutes into the second overtime to defeat Westminster last night, 2-1.In the end, a blend of experience and youthful enthusiasm helped No. 7-ranked Key (6-1), a Class 2A school, give seven-year coach Mindi Wagner her first victory over the perennial Class 4A power.Sophomores Kelly Miller, who scored, and Stacey Foster, who fed her, combined for the winning score, as Westminster goalkeeper Emily White lay sprawled, stretching in vain to deflect the ball out of a scramble in front of the cage.

Severna Park coach Don Gregg has lost count. Each season his Falcons, perennially one of the top teams in Anne Arundel County, take on powerful Calvert Hall, and each year they come away with an "L"."I used to keep it on computer, but not anymore," said Gregg.Last night was just another example of why.Trailing 1-0 at halftime, the second-ranked Cardinals scored two unanswered goals, and despite being a man down for the final 25 minutes, held on for a 2-1 win over the host No. 9 Falcons."I thought the law of averages was going to work out one of these days, but it was not today," said Gregg.

A 70-year-old Baltimore woman was assaulted and robbed of her purse Sunday as she walked to a Brooklyn Park automated teller machine, county police said.Marie Lukaszczyk of the 400 block of Church St. told police she was walking to an ATM in the 5700 block of Ritchie Highway shortly after 7 a.m. when someone knocked her to the ground and snatched her purse.Steve Harris of Brooklyn Park told police he saw the man attack Lukaszczyk and run away. Harris called police and stayed with the woman, who refused to be hospitalized, police said.

A 15-year-old Sykesville boy has been charged with assault with intent to murder and possession of firearms in connection with a disturbance in the town last week.The boy was released to his parents after spending a few days at the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School for juvenile offenders in Baltimore County, Sykesville police said.Police officers said they saw a boy throw two weapons into the front seat of a vehicle while they were investigating a disturbance in the parking lot of a townhouse development in the 7600 block of Schoolhouse Road.

It was a day when it appeared Maryland goalkeeper Brian Dougherty communicated better with the heckling Homewood fans than his own defensemen.The Terps had allowed eight goals on 23 Johns Hopkins shots. The Blue Jays were beating Maryland defenders for open shots.Then something changed midway through the third quarter. The Maryland defense slowly tightened its grip and secured the 12-9 victory with a stingy second-half performance.The Terps surrendered just one goal in the fourth quarter and only two in the game's final 24 minutes.

William J. Rowan loves to talk turkey. He also lives to hunt them.So it was a bit of shock to his hunting buddies earlier this month when Bill Rowan didn't show up at his Western Maryland hunting trailer for the fall wild turkey season. Instead, he spent that week as a volunteer helping two flocks of the wild birdssurvive their first winter in the Sweet Air section of Gunpowder Falls State Park."It was the first turkey season I've missed in eight years," Mr. Rowan said.The wooded terrain between Sweet Air Road and the Little Gunpowder Falls is only the second area in Baltimore County where wild turkey flocks -- which had largely vanished by the turn of the century as land was cleared for agriculture -- have been reintroduced.

When Mount St. Joseph coach Steve Szlasa was asked about his team's health before yesterday's season opener, he said the Gaels were doing fine "except for the usual first-game jitters."Szlasa had his own nerves to contend with, this being his first game as coach and his return to Severn School, where he played for two years before graduating in 1982.The 12th-ranked Gaels started slowly, allowing five quick shots and a goal by Peter Janney. But they soon got untracked and later took advantage of a three-minute, nonreleasable penalty to begin the fourth quarter by scoring twice for an 8-6 victory over the No. 8 Admirals in a Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference game.

An Alexandria, Va., woman and a cashier at an Arnold Exxon station fought off a knife-wielding thug who tried to rob both of them Tuesday night, county police said yesterday.Neither Delmis Alfaro-Rodriguez, 34, of Alexandria nor Sohail Imran, 27, of Severna Park was injured in the struggle.The thug had walked into the cashier's office of the station in the 300 block of Buschs Frontage Road about 11:30 p.m., brandishing a 4- to 6-inch knife in his right hand. He grabbed Ms. Alfaro-Rodriguez, who in turn seized his right arm and tried to push him out of the door, police said.

A disabled man tumbled 50 feet down a steep embankment Thursday night near Chinquapin Run Park in Northeast Baltimore and remained stuck on the wet hillside for nearly 12 hours before firefighters pulled him to safety yesterday morning.George Buchanan, 66, who lives in Northwood, had been walking his pit bull, Andy, about 8 o'clock Thursday night when the accident occurred in the 1500 block of Hartsdale Road, near Northwood Elementary School, fire officials said.Apparently, he lay there the entire night, said Battalion Chief Hector L. Torres, a Fire Department spokesman.