Njcaa

Ashley Jones was supposed to have the spotlight tonight, playing before a big crowd and a slew of basketball scouts in the first round of the National Junior College Athletic Association Division II tournament in Peoria, Ill. Instead, Jones and her teammates at undefeated Baltimore City Community College are sitting home, wondering what might have been. BCCC, which went 24-0 and is ranked No. 16 nationally, withdrew voluntarily from the tournament last week after an internal investigation into alleged NJCAA violations.

Fourteen members of the defending national champion Loyola men's lacrosse team took time from their holiday break today to travel to Newtown, Conn., and lead a youth clinic in the town rocked by a mass shooting last month at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The trip was the idea of freshman defenseman  Jason Crane (Chesapeake-Anne Arundel). Players departed Maryland this morning and picked up teammates on the trip to Connecticut. Others who live in the New England region met the team in Newtown.

DELHI, N.Y -- Freshman guard Tom Conroy was 4-for-4 from the free-throw line in last 15 seconds to help Minneapolis Junior College beat Howard Community College, 81-80, in a National Junior College Athletic Association semifinal last night.

Maryland wide receiver commitment Deon Long has ended his junior college career as a national champion. The D.C. native and former New Mexico standout played a major role in Iowa Western Community College's 27-7 win over Butler (Kan.) C.C. for the  NJCAA championship Sunday . Deon Long caught 14 passes for 137 yards to become the first player with 100 receptions in a season in NJCAA history. He already held the national mark for touchdowns catches in a year with 25. Long finished his sophomore season with 100 catches for 1,625 yards and 25 touchdowns, according to 247Sports.com . ** According to InsideMDSports , the Terps have parted ways with Stefan Houston , a 2012 linebacker commitment from Clarksburg who currently attends Fork Union (Va.)

Anne Arundel Community College sophomore sweeper Kevin Wise recently was chosen first-team National Junior College Athletic Association All-American.Wise, a Meade graduate, is the lone Region XX representative named to the first team."

Eight teams from across the country will begin play this morning at Essex Community College in the National Junior College Athletic Association women's national soccer championships.The four-day tournament will start at 10 o'clock this morning and run through the championship game at 11 a.m. Sunday.This will be the fourth time Essex has played host to the NJCAA women's championships. The Essex CC women's team has won two national titles but did not make the nationals this season.The Knights were eliminated last Sunday in the district finals, losing to SUNY-Farmingdale, 1-0, at Essex.

The National Junior College Athletic Association will begin investigating the Howard Community College men's basketball program this weekto determine whether the team conducted illegal practices earlier this month, said NJCAA executive director George Killian.NJCAA rules prohibit teams from practicing between Aug. 1 and Sept. 16, the official start of the season, so students can adjust to classes before starting athletic practices, Killian said. Games begin in November.If the NJCAA finds the program in violation, Killian said, it could face anything from "a simple reprimand to probation."

CCBC-Catonsville and Anne Arundel Community College will meet for the fourth time this year in the NJCAA women's national lacrosse championship at Nassau (N.Y.) Community College today at 2 p.m. The Cardinals beat the Pioneers in last year's inaugural championship game but dropped two of three contests to Anne Arundel this year by a two-goal margin. "It's a heated rivalry, but it's very clean and there are no problems like you may expect between the top two teams in the country," said Pioneers coach Jim Griffith.

After four days watching his team work over Iowa Lakes, Penn Valley, CCC-Platte and Rose State, Don Beasley rested. He drove 75 minutes from Danville, Ill., to the airport in Indianapolis, dropped off his national championship men's basketball team and went to look for a hotel to spend the night. "You don't realize it, but I was emotionally drained," said Beasley, whose 34-2 team from the Community College of Baltimore County-Dundalk defeated Rose State (Oklahoma), 88-77, for the NJCAA Division II crown.

To CCBC-Essex coach Tim Puls, Stew Monture was supposed to be an afterthought, a mere bump in the host Knights' road to a National Junior College Athletic Association men's lacrosse title. By halftime of yesterday's NJCAA title game, however, the Herkimer County (N.Y.) Community College freshman better resembled a brick wall, scoring six of his career-high nine goals during a 12:42 stretch in the first half, as the Generals ran out to a big lead and rolled to a 21-10 win to send Essex to its second straight title-game defeat.

Howard Community College Cross country The HCC men's and women's cross country programs competed at the NJCAA National Division III Championships, Nov. 7-11, in Delhi, N.Y. The men placed fifth overall, while the women finished in seventh place. Filagot Dinku earned All-American status by placing third overall with a time of 28:10. Andrew Parlette was named second team All-American with his seventh-place run in 28:39. HCC's top two runners were followed by Ed Richardson (51st in 30:58)

Many in the area know that Anne Arundel Community College has an exceptional women's lacrosse team, but not everyone keeps up with its success. And if ever there's been a season to follow the team, this is it. "Sometimes teachers or my friends' parents will ask, 'Hey, what's your record?'" said AACC goaltender Brittany Kincer of Glen Burnie, who adds that she prefers not to boast about the team's prowess. "I'll say, 'We're doing pretty well.' And they'll say, 'Well, what's your record?

The South Plains men's basketball team — 29-0 and ranked No. 1 in the National Junior College Athletic Association poll — is the best college squad that you probably have never heard of. But you might have heard of three of its players. Stanton Kidd, Derrell Edwards and Corey Spence grew up 1,705 miles away from Levelland, Texas — in Baltimore. Kidd played at Edmondson and Edwards and Spence teamed up at Dunbar; together they've helped the Texans earn their 11th Western Junior College Athletic Conference championship.

Ashley Jones was supposed to have the spotlight tonight, playing before a big crowd and a slew of basketball scouts in the first round of the National Junior College Athletic Association Division II tournament in Peoria, Ill. Instead, Jones and her teammates at undefeated Baltimore City Community College are sitting home, wondering what might have been. BCCC, which went 24-0 and is ranked No. 16 nationally, withdrew voluntarily from the tournament last week after an internal investigation into alleged NJCAA violations.

Russell Payne (Glenelg), a men's soccer assistant coach at Maryland, was named head coach at Army. The Terps were 99-30-12 with two national championships during his six seasons on the sideline. Payne played goalkeeper at Maryland from 1993 to 1996. ... Towson sophomore forward Liam Maloney was named to the National Soccer Coaches Association of America All-South Atlantic second team for the second consecutive season. Junior colleges: The 12-sport Harford athletics program will make the transition to a National Junior College Athletic Association Division I classification across the board beginning with the 2010-11 season.

HERKIMER, N.Y. -- The CCBC-Catonsville women's lacrosse team is right where Jessica Baublitz thought it would be: National Junior College Athletic Association national champion. The top-ranked and undefeated Cardinals, playing rival Harford Community College for the fourth time this season, played a complete game against the Fighting Owls to win, 13-6, yesterday at Herkimer County Community College in New York. Catonsville (15-0) won the three previous games by an average of 16 goals.

The American Baseball Coaches Association has elected CCBC-Dundalk's Elliott Oppenheim to the National Junior College Athletic Association Hall of Fame for baseball. Oppenheim's overall record is 605-374 over 32 seasons at the University of Baltimore, the Community College of Baltimore, and the last 13 at Dundalk, initially called Dundalk Community College. His teams have appeared in five NJCAA World Series. His current Dundalk team is ranked fifth in the NJCAA Division II preseason poll.

High-scoring guard Dawud Drew and his CCBC-Dundalk basketball teammates will attempt to continue an improbable run in the National Junior College Athletic Association Division II men's national championships today in Danville, Ill. Drew, the nation's leading NJCAA Division II scorer with a 30.8 average, and the Lions (16-14) will meet Kirkwood Community College of Iowa (24-7) in the quarterfinals at 2 p.m. at Danville Area CC. Drew also tops all NJCAA Division II players in steals (6.1 average)

GARDEN CITY, N.J. -- Nassau Community College goalkeeper Charles Parr was named the defensive Most Valuable Player of the National Junior College Athletic Association final four. As far as CCBC-Essex was concerned, though, Parr could have shared the honor with the rest of his teammates. A swarming Nassau defense shut down Essex, which scored its fewest goals in more than two months in an 11-6 loss to the Lions in the national championship game at Mitchel Field. "They were shutting me off, and usually when they shut you off it's tough to run," said Essex attackman Andrew Reinhardt (Calvert Hall)

The old baseball coach loaded a lifetime into that 1994 Ford pickup. There were uniforms, equipment, old lineup cards and files going back more than 20 years. He pulled away from the ball yard with much more than a career packed away in those boxes. "My life," George Henderson says. Henderson, 71, is one of those unique characters who somehow managed to smear his fingerprints on nearly every page of the history book. He's the line that connects the dots over the past half-century of baseball in Baltimore.