Parallel Bars

Basketball* High school league -- Matt Mathias scored 22 points to lead the Rockets to a 61-49 victory over the Spurs. Mark Bixler and Ryan Webster each totaled 11 points for the Spurs at Sandymount.Jim Stull's 19 points paced the Celtics to a 59-54 win over the Lakers. Mike Fenlon had 24 points for the Lakers.The Bulls topped the Bullets, 58-55, behind 13 points apiece from David Sinclair and Brooks Wagner.* Junior league -- Tyler Quinell scored 15 points as the Green team edged the Red team, 21-20.

With two wins last weekend, the Howard County Youth Program 11-year-old girls travel basketball team came away with second place in the Arbutus Sunday League postseason tournament.The team started the weekend with a 26-10 win over GORC, as Stacie Tokasz scored a season-high 12 points. Melissa Dugan added six, Terri Daniels four, Lisa Chapman three and Alexia Vogler one. Cindy Thomas excelled on defense for Howard.On Sunday, the team pulled the upset of the tournament against Arbutus, defeating the previously unbeaten hosts, 30-24, despite dressing only six players.

Basketball* 12-and-under boys -- The Buccaneers downed JPYO last weekend, 23-21, after losing to the same team by 20 points a week earlier.Jamie Knisley, Jeremy Robinson and Butch Santucci led the way for the Bucs (4-4) with six points each and Matt Wanner and Phil Gerdes rounded out the scoring with four and one point, respectively.The GORC Wildcats defeated the Glen Burnie Rebels, 55-43, last week to capture the Mark Price League championship.Norris Roy led the way for the Wildcats with 13 points and James Bowen added nine.

Annapolis senior gymnast Jamal Minatee admitted yesterday that for abrief moment he considered the "slim chance" that the host Panthers would falter in the county meet."

Junior Devin McCalla won the all-around title for the second year in a row, leading George Washington to its second straight championship at the 16th annual Towson University Invitational before 1,199 yesterday at Towson Center. The No. 25 Colonials set a meet record with a 195.175 team score to edge No. 32 Towson for the championship. The Tigers, who have won 14 of the previous 16 Towson Invitationals, had a 194.125 team score. James Madison was third (190.675). McCalla won the all-around with a 39.35 score, edging two Tigers.

ATLANTA -- The difference between gymnasts Alexi Nemov and Vitaly Scherbo in the men's all-around competition of the 1996 Olympic Games yesterday was a matter of where their fingers were pointed.Nemov blamed himself for losing the gold medal to Li Xiaoshuang of China by less than five one-hundredths of a point, while Scherbo put the burden of his bronze medal directly on the pTC judges.Nemov, a 20-year-old Russian considered the sport's rising star, removed a key element of his final routine, the floor exercise.

Gabby Linarducci and Anne Sugden had solid individual performances and led Towson State to its fourth straight championship in the annual Maryland State Colleges women's gymnastics meet at the Naval Academy yesterday.The Tigers finished with 187.45 points, followed by the University of Maryland, 185.80, and Navy, 174.55. It was a season high for each of the first two and a school record for the Midshipmen. Their previous record was 171.90.Linarducci tied for first in the all-around with Kristen Ragans of Maryland at 37.75, placed first in floor exercise with 9.6, and tied for first with Sugden at 9.65 on the uneven bars.

PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- Sixth-ranked West Virginia University used a first-place all-around performance by senior Umme Salim of Silver Spring to win its third straight East Atlantic Gymnastics League title at Rutgers University's Louis Brown Center last night.Before an EAGL record crowd of 1,824, the Mountaineers had a '' 195.50 team score to edge the eight-team field. Maryland finished fourth in the meet with a 192.675 score while Towson University finished fifth with a 192.45 score.New Hampshire was second in the meet with a 193.85, just ahead of North Carolina State (193.

Lorne Smith (Gilman) has wasted little time making his presence felt in Princeton lacrosse.The freshman attackman was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week for the third time in the season's first five weeks after scoring two goals against Penn and three against Brown, both Princeton victories.At Dickinson, Julie Martin (Garrison Forest) scored four goals on nine shots in a win over Haverford and Jenny Lund (John Carroll) had a season-high five points in a win over Drew. Martin has 14 goals this season, Lund 12.At Mary Washington, Bill McLean (Towson)

Severna Park gymnastics coach Bonnie Habicht knew only one thing was stopping Jesse Whyte from reaching his potential last year.Jesse Whyte."His problem was confidence more than anything," Habicht said of Whyte, 15, now a sophomore at Severna Park. "He was so much in awe of [Annapolis'] Jason Hill and Dominic Boardley and Peter Lombard. This year, they were out of the competitions, and as the season progressed, he became more and more confident in himself."Habicht's top female gymnast, senior Tracie Miller, had a different obstacle to overcome -- injuries.