Middletown

COLLEGE PARK -- Aberdeen opened the game with some torrid marksmanship, then needed clutch shooting in the waning minutes to hold off a determined Middletown, 70-58, in its Class 2A semifinal last night at Cole Field House.The Eagles will play Central (23-3) in the final tonight at 6. Central outlasted Southern-AA, 57-50, in the other 2A semifinal.Although the Eagles made it 18 victories in a row in boosting their record to 23-2, this one did not come easily.Backed by a 28-point first quarter -- the team's highest-scoring opening quarter of the year -- Aberdeen opened a 28-13 lead, and jumped it to 38-15 with little more than three minutes left in the half.

Even without Jimmy Dorsey, host Winters Mill last night showed Monocacy Valley Athletic League power Middletown that it still has enough to be one of the top teams in the area. Playing their second game without Dorsey, last year's Carroll County Player of the Year who was dismissed from the team late last week for violating a team rule, the Falcons got 26 points from Brett Burrier, 24 from Cammeron Woodyard and 20 from point guard Devon Lesniak in an 83-81 overtime win. Winters Mill (14-3)

Middletown's Paul Glagola won the $4,000 scholarship as the grand winner of last night's 28th Annual Scholar-Athlete Awards Dinner.Glagola, representing the West region, was one of 90 football players honored for their achievements on and off the field. He told the gathering of 1,500 at Martin's West that he was grateful to the sponsors, the Greater Baltimore Chapter of the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame, his parents and coaches."I also want to thank my older brother, Doug, who is closest to me in age," said Glagola.

COLLEGE PARK -- A banner on the Middletown side of Cole Field House read "Dunbar Schmunbar," testament that the Knights were not at all intimidated by the legendary basketball reputation of Baltimore's top-ranked Poets.From the opening tip, it was evident the Frederick County squad was set on sending the Poets home title-less for the second straight year. The Knights trailed by just one point after the first quarter and by only three after the second and third periods.But Dunbar started the final quarter with an 8-1 run that was capped by an alley-oop pass from Tony Johnson for a dunk by Jamal Brown (13 points, eight rebounds, four blocks)

Contrasting styles have resulted in different scoring totals, but it still figures to be strength against strength when Fallston and Middletown play for the state Class 2A boys soccer championship tomorrow at noon at Old Mill High School.For the second year in a row, Fallston (14-0-1, 19 successive non-losing games) has run roughshod over its playoff opposition, beating Loch Raven, 4-0; Towson, 6-0; and Glenelg, 4-0. In winning the Class 1A title a year ago, the goals margin was 27-2.Middletown comes in having played a series of tense, hard-fought contests.

Hundreds of mourners descended on the Frederick County town of Middletown on Friday to mark the deaths of a family of five killed last week in a murder-suicide. Just after 1 p.m., after a private funeral, cars streamed out of Holy Family Catholic Community's parking lot toward the cemetery at Zion Lutheran Church. At the front of the procession were three black hearses, carrying the bodies of Chris Wood, 34, Francie Billotti-Wood, 33, and their three young children, Chandler, 5, Gavin, 4, and Fiona, 2. They are to be buried together - mother and daughter in one coffin, the brothers in another and Wood alone in a third, according to Brenda Blank, a neighbor who attended the visitation Thursday.

For an instant, yesterday's Class 2A state semifinal baseball game against Middletown conjured up memories of Northeast's 6-5 season-ending state semifinal loss to Edgewood a year ago.The top-seeded two-time Region III champion Eagles trailed, 2-0, in the bottom of the first. And they were facing the Knights' fastballing left-hander, MattHelfer, who had lost just once in 10 starts.But order was restored by the top of the fourth as the Eagles held an 8-2 lead and had laid waste to Helfer for six hits, including a second-inning Don Shump three-run homer, en route to a 13-3 victory.

It's said that good teams make their own breaks. If that age-old adage is true, then the Howard Lions are on a plane all their own following last night's Class 2A state quarterfinal.Facing an unbeaten Middletown team that entered the game averaging 32 points a game, host Howard had just about every break go its way, taking advantage of numerous turnovers, one of which, a fumble, senior Louis Matthews returned 58 yards for the game's only score in a 6-0 win."I think both teams played good defense," said Howard coach Vince Parnell.

All season long, Long Reach's solid passing attack of senior quarterback Gregg Matusewitch and senior receivers Willy Bhatia and Chris Smith have been making the big plays, leading the Columbia high school to an 8-2 year and a Class 2A South region championship.Yesterday, that magic came to an abrupt end as Frederick County's Middletown suffocated the Lightning passing attack and easily defeated Long Reach, 28-0, in a Class 2A quarterfinal.The 10-1 Knights blanketed Bhatia, who entered the game with 406 receiving yards and eight touchdowns, and Smith (228 yards and 10 touchdowns)

The Middletown boys soccer team is far different from the squad that captured the Class 2A West regional title last season, but it would be difficult to convince Francis Scott Key otherwise. The Eagles were outhustled, outshot and outplayed in a 5-0 loss to the visiting Knights in Union Bridge last night. Middletown torched the nets with three goals in the first half -two of which came in the final minute of play - and added two more in the second half. The Knights' domination of Francis Scott Key, which dropped to 1-1 in the Monocacy Valley Athletic League and 1-2-1 overall, forced co-coaches Bob Cole and Michael Oakes to call a team meeting after the game.