Oldfields

Glenelg Country School earned its third straight regular-season Association of Independent Schools B Division title this season. Winning the postseason tournament, however, hasn't been that easy.Oldfields beat Glenelg Country last season in the tournament semifinals before winning the title. Yesterday, Oldfields did it again, knocking off the host Dragons, 2-1, in a semifinal game that wasn't settled until a sudden-death shootout."This was one of our best games of the season," said Glenelg Country coach Courtney Butler.

Most of the students at Oldfields School come from far away, but two from nearby have led the girls lacrosse team to the top of the Association of Independent Schools B Division.Jody Cowan and Nicole Brahim are among only 30 day students at the Glencoe boarding school in northern Baltimore County. Growing up in Baltimore, both played lacrosse long before most of their classmates ever saw a lacrosse stick.Both started playing competitively in the sixth grade at St. Paul's School, although Cowan's introduction to lacrosse came much earlier.

In most classes, ask who wants to lead the chemistry experiments and count how many young men's hands shoot up.Not at Oldfields School. In science labs here, young women take all the credit for creating green ooze, juggling beakers and showering unsuspecting schoolmates with disappearing ink.It is indeed a girls' world on these 200 acres in Glencoe, where, in grades eight through 12, girls and young women from 28 states and nine countries run the science experiments,...

Financially troubled Oldfields School in Glencoe has named as its new head an educator who served there for 18 years in the 1970s and 1980s. Taylor Smith, the girls boarding school's new leader, was assistant head at Oldfields before he left in 1988 to run York Country Day School in York, Pa. After 12 years in York, he joined Episcopal High School in Jacksonville, Fla., where he is the associate head and director of college counseling. He takes over as Oldfields is working to shore up its finances.

Talk about a second life in the playoffs.Oldfields came into the AIS B Division tournament with a 2-10-2 NTC record and left with the championship.Not only did Oldfields beat Lutheran, 1-0, in yesterday's title game played at Garrison Forest, but the defense shut out all three tournament opponents and allowed only six shots on goal.Quite a turnaround for a team on the losing side of seven regular-season shutouts, including a 1-0 rain-shortened meeting with Lutheran (9-4-5).The Saints, who finished with their best-ever record and made their first appearance in the title game, just could not counter Oldfields' short passing game and sticky defense.

Oldfields girls lacrosse coach Beth Franks knows how to turn a program around.In the past five years, she has taken her team from winless to peerless in the Association of Independent Schools B Division.Oldfields rebounded from an 0-11 record in 1989 to 11-2 in 1993. Franks' team capped the turnaround this spring by winning the B Division Tournament championship, 9-8, over Institute of Notre Dame.Winning a title, even in the B Division, is a tougher task for Franks and her players than most in the AIS, because Oldfields, in northern Baltimore County, is a boarding school.

Kathleen D. Jameson, an administrator at the private Albuquerque Academy and a former public school teacher, has been chosen as the sixth head of Oldfields School in Glencoe.Jameson will take over July 1 at the 130-year-old girls' boarding and day school, becoming the first female head since two members of the founding McCulloh family led the school in its early years. She will replace Hawley Rogers, who is retiring after 21 years as headmaster and 28 years at the school."The school will be led by a woman for the first time in 100 years," she said in a phone interview yesterday.

The girls lacrosse teams at Seton Keough and Oldfields are certainly living up to the adage that when you're No. 2, you try harder. Last season, both teams finished second in their Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland tournament championships - Seton Keough in the B Conference and Oldfields in the C Conference. Last week, both finished their conference schedules unbeaten. Each is gearing up for another try at a title with tournaments beginning Tuesday for Oldfields (7-4-1, 7-0)

Since losing to Archbishop Spalding early in the season, Seton Keough's girls lacrosse team has come a long way. The Gators defeated two ranked teams in the past three weeks -- St. Mary's and St. Paul's -- and earned their own No. 13 ranking. Yesterday, the Gators polished off their turnaround season with a second straight Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland B Conference championship, overwhelming Spalding, 10-3, at Johns Hopkins' Homewood Field. The Cavaliers (12-4-1) stalled the Gators' transition offense early, and Lizzy Bayly gave Spalding a 1-0 lead on a free-position shot.

While Oldfields' attack certainly did its job in yesterday's Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland C Conference championship, the turning point came on defense. In a game that had been back and forth and featured three ties in the second half, top-seeded Oldfields shut down No. 2-seed St. Timothy's for the final 15:42 to take a 12-8 victory at Villa Julie College for its first C girls lacrosse crown. St. Timothy's (8-3) took its last lead, 8-7, when Lucky Sinex rolled the crease for her fifth goal of the game, but after that, Caitlin Mabry shut the junior attacker down.