Poets

Dunbar senior guard Daxter Miles has shown a knack for the dramatics when the No. 2 Poets have played Edmondson this season. In an epic Baltimore City boys basketball championship game Tuesday at Morgan State - a well played and tightly contested battle that didn't have a defining moment until overtime, largely because neither team would budge - Miles once again stepped up at the opportune time. Trailing by two with nine seconds left in overtime, Miles sank a 3-pointer from the top of the key to give the Poets a thrilling 74-73 win over the No. 5 Red Storm for their second straight Division 1 championship.

Margaret C. Doyle, a retired public school English teacher and poet who later taught for many years at the Renaissance Institute, died Thursday from complications following surgery at Baltimore Washington Medical Center. The former longtime Pikesville resident was 85. "Margaret was a magnificent woman. She was brilliant and loving," said Jim Holechek, a retired Baltimore public relations executive and author. "Her husband was an artist and she was a poet, and it was always wonderful to interface with her. She was a very sensitive person and able to express herself very well.

Dunbar became the first Baltimore City team to win a regional softball championship Saturday when the Poets topped the Institute of Business and Entrepreneurship  (formerly Walbrook), 17-7, to take the Class 1A South title. Freshman Daunyea Felton, who has pitched every inning of the Poets'  17-0 season, allowed only four hits and struck out eight. Shanette Parker went 4-for-4 with a triple and three doubles and drove in three runs. Shylia Buie went 3-for-4 with two RBIs while Jessica Paschall and Candice DeShields each had three hits.

Dunbar junior quarterback William Crest verbally committed to West Virginia on Friday, according to multiple reports. Crest helped the Poets win the Class 1A state championship last fall, throwing for two touchdowns in Dunbar's 39-0 victory over New Town at M&T Bank Stadium. He threw 14 touchdown passes overall last season as the Poets went 13-1 to win their third straight 1A title. Rivals.com ranks Crest as a four-star prospect and the No. 205 overall recruit in the Class of 2014, while Scout.com has him as a three-star prospect and the No. 30 quarterback in the graduating class.

The Dunbar defense shut down Forest Park and the Poets took advantage of starting several drives with great field position to win their seventh straight region title. Evan Pittman threw two touchdown passes, and No. 8 Dunbar limited Forest Park to only three first downs and 88 total yards of offense en route to a 20-0 victory in the Class 1A North Region championship game Saturday at Poly. Dunbar (11-1) will play at Catoctin in a state semifinal Friday night. The Poets have won three straight state titles and four in the past five years.

Defending Class 1A state champion and No. 4 Dunbar continued its march to the state finals at UMBC's RAC Arena on Wednesday. Michelle Wright scored a game-high 17 points and the host Poets beat Northwestern, 57-27, in a Class 1A South regional semifinal. The Poets (16-6) will face the winner of Ben Franklin-Masonville's game with Surrattsville in Saturday's regional final. No. 14 Century 58, Walkersville 40: Alice Mercer scored 19 points and Jamie Clark added 16 to power the host Knights (22-3)

The corner of Orleans and Central in East Baltimore was swarming with anticipation. Dunbar's boys basketball team had a big game to play, which meant an eager crowd began forming outside the school's gym doors more than two hours before the opening tip. Not everybody would make it inside, but those who did saw the numerous championship pennants that take up an entire wall, each square foot needed to recognize the decades of excellence....

MANY RESIDENTS of East Baltimore are in a collective funk, worried about what the coming basketball season will bring. As a long-time Dunbar Poets fan, who briefly was an East Baltimore vTC resident some years ago, count me among them. I'm a Poet at heart.The only local sports phenomenon I can equate it with is when Robert Irsay skulked away with the Colts in the middle of the night. The city as a whole was crushed. Feelings for the Poets run much deeper and are more personal.The Poets are more than just a basketball team.

ERIE, Pa. -- Dunbar seniors Michael Lloyd and Donta Bright have lost just five games since the beginning of their sophomore seasons."When we get a chance to get revenge, we go for it because we are seniors and we won't get another chance," Bright said.Saturday night, Lloyd and Bright helped Dunbar, the area's and the nation's No. 1 team, take care of unfinished business by winning the McDonald's Classic, a tournament the Poets had been eliminated from in the first round two seasons ago by Cathedral Prep of Erie, 68-62.

Dunbar High's two McDonald's All-Americans, Donta Bright and Michael Lloyd, who led the Poets to the nation's No. 1 ranking and a 29-0 record this past season, have made oral commitments to Massachusetts and Arkansas, respectively.Both are expected to make their decisions official after April 15, when the NCAA signing period begins for basketball players.Bright's decision is somewhat of a surprise. The 6-foot-5 center/forward, who was The Baltimore Sun's Player of the Year this past season, had been leaning toward Ohio State.

“Attention, attention … the mic is now open.” It is only fitting that Derrick Weston Brown begins his presentation at local high schools with an original poem beckoning “all poets and lovers of the word.” “Poetry is for everybody,” Brown, 36, tells the students at Mt. Hebron High School in Ellicott City. “Everyone is born a poet, but society takes that away.” As the writer-in-residence for the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo), Brown's goal is to nurture young poets in the area.

Breathing a collective sigh of relief before celebrating, Maryland's most prolific boys basketball team - Dunbar - added to the program's legacy in Saturday's Class 1A state championship game at the University of Maryland's Comcast Center. With a hard-fought 54-52 win over No. 9 New Town in a rematch of last year's title game, the No. 1 Dunbar captured its state record 15th Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association championship. Combined with their 20 Maryland Scholastic Association championships prior to joining the MPSSAA in the 1992-93 school year, the Poets now have 35 championships.

Dunbar could do just about anything it wanted against Washington in Friday's Class 1A state semifinal. The Poets had a large advantage in size, speed and strength. In other words, they were just too much. The Jaguars, from Somerset County, scored the game's first basket, but the rest of the evening belonged to No. 1 Dunbar. The Poets needed only four minutes to increase their lead to 10 points, and they didn't have much trouble in a 70-41 victory over Washington at the University of Maryland's Comcast Center.

It took a while, but Dunbar's girls basketball team finally hit its stride in the third quarter of Thursday night's state Class 1A semifinal. The two-time defending champion Poets used a 17-point spurt that began late in the second half and got rolling with two Kahla McIver 3-pointers to spark a 55-43 victory over Mardela at UMBC's RAC Arena. Once the Poets took a 39-36 lead on McIver's 20-footer to end the third quarter, they revved up their defense and hit the boards to hold the Warriors scoreless for nearly five minutes of the fourth.

Dunbar senior guard Daxter Miles has shown a knack for the dramatics when the No. 2 Poets have played Edmondson this season. In an epic Baltimore City boys basketball championship game Tuesday at Morgan State - a well played and tightly contested battle that didn't have a defining moment until overtime, largely because neither team would budge - Miles once again stepped up at the opportune time. Trailing by two with nine seconds left in overtime, Miles sank a 3-pointer from the top of the key to give the Poets a thrilling 74-73 win over the No. 5 Red Storm for their second straight Division 1 championship.

City sank five of its first seven shots and raced to a 12-5 lead in just under four minutes at the start of Tuesday's game against visiting Dunbar. The Poets couldn't get started on offense, which delighted the screaming City fans in the packed gym. That's when Daxter Miles changed everything - very quickly. Miles needed just one minute, 20 seconds to score seven straight points as part of a 13-point run that gave Dunbar the lead for good. The senior guard finished with a game-high 21 points as No. 3 Poets rolled to a 61-45 victory over No. 8 City.

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. -- Dave Krider, the writer who ranks high school basketball teams for USA Today, had a message for No. 1 Dunbar after the Poets edged No. 13 Simon Gratz, 55-53, in the championship game of the Beach Ball Classic last night."

Nationally recognized poets Julia Wendell and Bruce A. Jacobs will be among the featured guests at the Poetry Place at the Coffeehouse at the Random House Book Fair on Saturday at Carroll Community College.Other poets will include Virginia Crawford, Barbara DeCesare, Rosemary Klein, Sam Schmidt, Kathleen Adcock, Alan Bogage, Joanne Bowen, Kim Neimeyer and Susan Tegeler.Music by pianist Karen Friedland will alternate with poetry readings from 10 a.m. to 3: 30 p.m. in the ground-floor atrium of the college's Learning Resources Center.

The Dunbar gym was sweltering during the Poets' boys basketball game against Baltimore City rival Edmondson earlier this season. It wasn't any different than countless other nights in past decades when the team had a big matchup, but the atmosphere was still new to Dunbar's transfer guard Daxter Miles. "There was a lot of emotions involved, a different vibe. That was the game so far," Miles said. "I know a lot about Poet Pride. You can see from all the banners on our wall. … It's great tradition here and an honor for me to play here.

It was just two weeks ago that the Dunbar boys basketball team finally settled on its starting lineup. All the while, the No. 3 Poets, defending Baltimore City and three-time Class 1A state champions, have found different ways to win. On the road against No. 8 Poly in a showdown of unbeaten league teams, Dunbar mostly relied on a tough zone defense and poised play in the closing minutes for a 55-43 victory. Senior guards Daxter Miles (15 points) and Kamau Stokes (12) led the offense, and the defensive scheme frustrated the Engineers most of the way. The Poets improved to 11-1 overall and 5-0 in Baltimore City's Division I, while Poly, which got a game-high 19 points from forward Darrion Stokes-Graham, is now 11-3 and 4-1 in league play.