Perfect Season

BOYS PLAYER OF THE YEAR Tyler Smith Douglass, senior Smith's play exemplified the No. 1 Ducks this season: quick and powerful. The 6-foot-2 guard led the area in scoring at 28.1 points per game for Douglass, which enjoyed its first perfect season at 28-0. He also led the team with 4.9 assists and 4.8 steals, taking over a game in crucial moments. Against Philadelphia's Overbrook at the Basketball Academy Mixer at Coppin State, Smith scored 12 of his game-high 28 points in the final quarter to rally Douglass to a 70-62 victory.

HERNDON, Va. -- Mark Rypien and Troy Aikman seem to be taking a different route to a date in Hawaii in February.Rypien, who's led the Washington Redskins to an 11-0 start and a shot at a perfect season, and Aikman, who has the Dallas Cowboys at 6-5 and bidding for a wild-card playoff spot, will duel Sunday at RFK Stadium.They also seem destined to be the two NFC quarterbacks in the Pro Bowl in Honolulu Feb. 2.Rypien has the best NFC quarterback rating (100.1) and has thrown 19 touchdown passes.

Howard County, winner of more state championships, 34, than any other jurisdiction, is once again the boys soccer hot spot as the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association state playoffs swing into high gear this week. Here is a brief look at the state-title hopefuls. River Hill: A six-year run of excellence continues with the No. 1-ranked Hawks seeking their fourth state title. River Hill posted its first county unbeaten season (9-0), and at 11-0-1 has a chance at its first overall unbeaten season.

Entering Saturday's state championship games at Cole Field House, Catonsville and Edgewood shared high hopes and but one loss between them. By the end of the evening they shared disappointment and three losses.For No. 5-ranked Catonsville (25-1), a perfect season was ended by DuVal of Prince George's County, 85-66, in the Class 3A final. The small, talented and quick Comets never quit, though they were outscored in every quarter, but DuVal was taller, quicker and more athletic.Senior guard Carl Turner zipped through the Comets for 32 points while 6-foot-6 junior forward Stacy Robinson, a Division I prospect, added 19 and nine rebounds, and Tyrone Boardley, also 6-6, had 15 of each.

WASHINGTON -- In the cold, cruel world of the NFL, dreams often die hard.The Washington Redskins buried one yesterday."I said, from the beginning, it was a dream. It's a good dream. We didn't get the dream," coach Joe Gibbs said after the Redskins were beaten for the first time this season, 24-21, by the Dallas Cowboys at RFK Stadium.The dream was the first 19-0 season in NFL history. The dream was duplicating the 17-0 perfect season the Miami Dolphins posted in 1972 -- the only perfect season in NFL history.

The Washington Redskins want to play 19 games this year.That's because the only way they can do that is to make the Super Bowl.But the team they may wind up being compared with could be their 20th foe: the 1972 Miami Dolphins.As the Redskins -- 9-0 going into today's game against the Atlanta Falcons -- attempt to match the Dolphins' feat of a perfect season (17-0), the comparisons will become more inevitable with each Washington victory.And the two teams appear to be quite similar.Both featured excellent head coaches (Joe Gibbs and Don Shula)

WASHINGTON -- The Washington Redskins hope their alarm never sounds this year.They don't want to wake up now, because they're enjoying a dream season."

WASHINGTON -- Eight years later, Joe Gibbs is finally willing to admit it.There was actually a time when the Washington Redskins coach didn't think he was an underdog. There was a time he didn't think he had any major weaknesses.Gibbs, who is noted for poor-mouthing and always portraying himself as the underdog, said Wednesday when the Redskins closed camp that he opened the 1983 season in a confident mood."I wish I had the luxury of saying, 'Hey, we're great this year.' In '83, that was the closest I came to it. I didn't know of any weaknesses.

There are no such things as style points in the NFL, but there is a matter of winning in style. For half a season, no team has done it better than the Denver Broncos.They lead the league in scoring, rush offense and, now that the Minnesota Vikings have fallen, talk of a perfect season."Our goal is not to stay undefeated," coach Mike Shanahan said of his 8-0 defending champs. "Our goal is to win the Super Bowl.L "But at the same time, you're going into every game to win."The Broncos have a swagger born of an offense that averages 34.1 points a game, that has scored more than 30 points six times and more than 40 twice.

There have been amazing stories down through the years about football coaches staying up all night to prepare for games. But Maryland coach Jim Tatum may have topped them all the night before his heavy-underdog Terrapins upset No. 1 Tennessee, 28-13, in the 1952 Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. Tatum dared to break existing protocol by rooming with his star quarterback, Jack Scarbath, and going over every possible scenario Scarbath would face the next afternoon. "Tatum would say over and over, `Now, if they do this, what will you do?