Napora

Glen Burnie coach Bob Broccolino couldn't remember the last time his team had beaten Chesapeake. Maybe it was 1989, the year the Gophers won the Class 4A state championship. All he knew for sure was there were plenty of frustration.Yesterday almost became another one of those times.Third-ranked Chesapeake rallied for three unearned runs in the bottom of the seventh inning and had the winning run at the plate, but the top-ranked Gophers escaped with a 6-4 victory in Pasadena.The Cougars (3-1)

Samantha Miller is enjoying pitching again at Anne Arundel Community College after a bad freshman-year experience at the University of Maryland.Chris Napora is hitting extremely well and has earned a softball scholarship to Towson State.All Sherry Goodman has done is go 14-1 on the mound after figuring she was not good enough to make the team last season.And Amy Loprete is starting in left field and hitting .318 even though she was never a starter in high school.Those four different success stories are typical of what has helped propel the Anne Arundel Community College women's softball team into the National Junior College Athletic Association limelight this spring.

If No. 2 Glen Burnie had any chance of defeating Northern-Calvert in yesterday's Class 4A East Region final, it couldn't make mistakes. Nothing short of perfection would do.That was asking too much of the third-seeded Gophers, who gave up five unearned runs in the third inning and spent most of the day trying just to make contact against senior pitcher Kelly Shipman.Final score: Northern-Calvert 12, Glen Burnie 0.Shipman, who received a scholarship to the University of Maryland, still hasn't given up an earned run this spring.

Elwin H. Alpern, a retired Odenton pharmacist who headed his profession's state association, died Thursday of complications from a stroke and cancer at Northwest Hospital Center in Randallstown. He was 74 and lived in Stevenson. The president of the Maryland Pharmacists Association from 1988 to 1989, he had earlier headed the Baltimore Retail Druggists' Association. Born in Baltimore and raised on Dolfield Avenue in Northwest Baltimore, he was a graduate of Polytechnic Institute, where he played on the football team.

In his article on Sen. Barbara Mikulski and how her assignment as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee has helped her campaign fundraising, reporter John Fritze wrote that "For Mikulski ... the windfall underscores her transition from a lawmaker who has typically engaged more on local issues to someone who now chairs a committee that wields tremendous power on the national level. Mikulski benefited from a number of first-time donations from political action committees, including an association that represents assisted living facilities, one of the nation's largest energy companies and a leading supplier of cement.

Junior starter Travis White scattered seven hits and struck out four through five innings to pick up the win as McDonogh surprised top-ranked St. Paul's, 4-3, in Brooklandville yesterday. White also had two hits for the Eagles, who jumped to a 2-0 lead in the second inning and never trailed against St. Paul's, playing its first Baltimore-area game after a training trip to Hawaii. Josh Napora and Brandon Erbe also had two hits apiece, helping McDonogh improve to 2-0 following Monday's win over Loyola.

It has been a memorable baseball season for Johns Hopkins junior pitcher and center fielder John Christ.A Division III All-American candidate, he has gone on a school record-breaking hitting tear that has led the Blue Jays to a school-record 35 wins with two losses in the regular season, which ended last Sunday.Christ ranks fourth in the NCAA Division III national stats with 71 RBIs and fifth in batting average at .510.The 6-foot-2, 205-pound slugger has also hit 16 home runs this season, scored 60 runs, had 74 hits, 14 doubles, 140 total bases, a .966 slugging percentage and stole 18 bases in 18 attempts.

They were coming off an excruciating loss on Tuesday, but Glen Burnie had history on its side in yesterday's game against No. 4 Severna Park.Recent history.The fifth-ranked Gophers upended Severna Park for the second time in 16 days, using a suicide squeeze by Coral Brandenburg in the sixth inning to score Denise Warren for a 5-4 victory in Glen Burnie.Warren (3-for-4, two doubles) gave up four hits and struck out three, as Glen Burnie eased some of the frustration of the previous day's 5-4, extra-inning loss to No. 2 Chesapeake.

Moves Baseball MARINERS: Signed DH Edgar Martinez and P Shigetoshi Hasegawa to one-year contracts. ORIOLES: Agreed to terms with P Mike Drumright. REDS: Added P Chris Booker, P Josh Hall, IF Rainer Olmedo and OF Steve Smitherman to 40-man roster. Basketball WNBA: Named Patty Broderick supervisor of officials, Dee Kantner director of referee development and Tracy Ellis-Ward director of basketball operations. College ACADEMIC DISTRICT II SOCCER TEAM: Named Salisbury's Brook Riggleman and John Muto and College of Notre Dame's Becky Sullens and Julia Bachman to first team.

ERIN LASCHINGER NOTRE DAME PREP The junior midfielder did a little bit of everything for the No. 6 Blazers, who pushed No. 1 John Carroll to overtime in the IAAM A Conference semifinal before falling 14-12. She led her team in scoring with 48 goals and 10 assists, but she was even more valuable in her ability to contribute on defense. Her speed and stickwork made Laschinger difficult to contain on the attacking end and hard to outmaneuver on defense.