North Carolina

There has been plenty of speculation that Johns Hopkins won't make the NCAA lacrosse tournament, but I don't see that happening. As long as the Blue Jays (8-5) beat Army this weekend, they'll get in. Remember, this is still Hopkins we're talking about here. The Hopkins name is synonymous with the sport. The Blue Jays have some lightweights on the schedule, but they still play Maryland, Navy, Loyola, North Carolina, Syracuse and Princeton. That's a very tough schedule. This might be a "down" year for Hopkins, but the Blue Jays will rebound.

ESPN analyst Mark Dixon, who provided color commentary for No. 7 Loyola's 8-4 victory over No. 13 Johns Hopkins on Saturday, will handle play-by-play duties for the championship final of the America East tournament at Stony Brook this Saturday and then add analysis for the title game of the Ivy League tournament the next day. The former Blue Jays midfielder, who can be followed on Twitter @Dixonlacrosse, discussed No. 3 Notre Dame's candidacy for...

Baltimore's lead detective in the high-profile disappearance of North Carolina teenager Phylicia Barnes was charged Monday with committing assault and burglary during a frantic search last year for his own daughter. Detective Daniel T. Nicholson IV, a veteran homicide investigator, is accused of forcing his way into a Northeast Baltimore apartment, knocking one woman down and pushing a second person to the ground in a search that began after his daughter ran away from home. The charges come more than a year after the allegations surfaced, and a month before the scheduled retrial of Michael Maurice Johnson in the death of Phylicia Barnes, a 16-year-old North Carolina teen who was visiting family in Baltimore when she went missing in 2010.

The milestones keep clicking off for the Maryland women's lacrosse team. Unbeaten regular season? Done. Fifth consecutive ACC tournament championship and 10th overall? Done. A run at an 11th NCAA championship? Stay tuned. The No. 1-ranked Terps (19-0) maintained their ACC supremacy Sunday night, dispatching homestanding North Carolina 12-8 in a steady rain at Fetzer Field. Brooke Griffin (South River), Taylor Cummings (McDonogh) and Beth Glaros (Wilde Lake) each had a hat trick, and Katie Schwarzmann (Century)

Top seed and No. 1 Maryland beat Virginia, 13-9, on Friday at Fetzer Field in Chapel Hill, N.C., to advance to its sixth straight Atlantic Coast Conference women's lacrosse championship game. The Terps (18-0) were led by Katie Schwarzmann , Kelly McPartland, Brooke Griffin and Alex Aust, who each had a hat trick. Schwarzmann moved to third all time in career goals at Maryland (221). Maryland, seeking its fifth straight ACC title, plays third-seeded host North Carolina on Sunday at 5 p.m. No. 12 Navy 9, Lafayette 8: Lindsay Rheiner scored her second goal with 11:10 left for a 9-7 Mids lead and host Navy (17-1)

Kenni Patrick, a student at St. Vincent Pallotti High School, served as a page for the North Carolina House of Representatives, in Raleigh, N.C. The daughter of Kenneth and Tanya Patrick, of Laurel, she was sponsored by Rep. Julia Howard (Republican-Davie, Forsyth). Pages spend a week at the General Assembly assisting members and their staff and learning about the structure of North Carolina government.

At 6-7, Virginia's only hope for avoiding its first absence from the NCAA tournament since 2004 is upsetting No. 4 Maryland this Friday and then disposing of either No. 1 Duke or No. 2 North Carolina on Sunday to capture the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. The Cavaliers figure to be downright ornery as they fight for their postseason lives, and coach John Tillman acknowledged that he is worried about the Terps (9-2) matching their opponent's intensity at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, N.C. “That's certainly a concern,” he said during his weekly conference call Tuesday.

Maryland basketball fans might want to hold onto their ticket stubs from last season's games against Duke and North Carolina. They are now officially collector's items. According to the 2013-14 schedules released by the ACC on Tuesday, the Terps will visit both Cameron Indoor Stadium and the Dean Dome. No return trip necessary. Ever. This should not come as a surprise, considering the now acrimonious (not to mention litigious) relationship between the lame-duck Terps and the ACC. As a going-away present, it's a lot cheaper than dropping the $52 million exit fee the lawyers in Greensboro are trying to extract from their Maryland counterparts.

ESPN analyst Paul Carcaterra provided color commentary for No. 4 Notre Dame's 13-9 victory over Villanova last Saturday, an outcome that lifted Fighting Irish into a three-way tie for first place in the Big East. The former Syracuse All-American midfielder, who can be followed on Twitter via @paulcarcaterra, will be part of the crew covering Saturday's Konica Minolta Big City Classic pitting No. 7 Cornell against No. 12 Princeton and No. 4 Notre Dame against No. 5 Syracuse. Carcaterra discussed which team would get his vote for the No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, which upset shocked him the most, and which game this weekend intrigues him. If the season ended today, who should be the No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament?

A little over a month ago, the Maryland men's lacrosse team had the most high-powered offense in the country, a perfect record and the No. 1 ranking. But a strength has turned into their major weakness, and as the Terps prepare to welcome No. 14 Yale to Byrd Stadium in College Park on Saturday, they have been questioning everything about their floundering attack. After averaging 15 goals in its first six contests, Maryland is averaging 8.0 goals and has reached double digits in just one of its past four games.