Pride

Regardless of the score, injuries or the embarrassment endured by the Ravens the past two weeks, the team's defense continues to play hard. The bodies of linebackers Ray Lewis, Bart Scott and Terrell Suggs are still being hurled onto the field while stand-up guys like defensive linemen Haloti Ngata, Kelly Gregg, Justin Bannan and Trevor Pryce, and linebacker Jarret Johnson continue to do the grunt work. In a season in which expectations have not been achieved and the offense has gone underground, the defensive players refuse to quit.

Since 1994, Peggy McCarthy and Collette Cunningham have been a part of a winning U.S. women's soccer tradition. They are members of the Maryland Pride, which won the W-1 League's six-team North with an 11-4 record.The Pride will open single-elimination playoffs at 7: 30 p.m. Saturday at its home field, Richard Montgomery High in Rockville, hoping to qualify for the final-four W-1 tournament in Raleigh, N.C.The Pride, a playoff contenderfor the fourth time in its five-year existence, will face the Long Island Lady Riders, also 11-4 but with a shootout win that cost it two points, second in the North.

The clipper ship Pride of Baltimore II, Maryland's goodwill ambassador, was scheduled to motor through the Panama Canal today after safely dodging a series of Pacific hurricanes off Mexico and Central America.En route home after a yearlong cruise to the Far East, the Pride is due in Baltimore at noon Nov. 27, after stops in Miami and Jacksonville, Fla.The 10-year-old ship, with a crew of 12, was bound from San Diego to Acapulco, Mexico, when it ran into Tropical Storm Madeline in the Pacific on Oct. 15.The storm "hurled rain and sea at us with the fury of a jilted woman," said Capt.

TWO MINUTES from the heavenly Harford County horse farm where the champion thoroughbred Cigar was born, you can have cafe latte at Starbucks, shop at a "big box" store and select from as many chain restaurants as there are days in a month. As suburbia continues its sometimes jarring transformation of Harford County, government's greatest challenge will be to harness that surge.Today, The Sun endorses for council districts in the western and southern parts of the county, which range from some of Harford's richest horse country to some of its poorest communities.

THE WONDERFUL ride in the stock market that benefited so many investors last year also paid off handsomely for colleges and universities.The Johns Hopkins University's endowment -- the sum of gifts and bequests and the interest earned on them over the years -- passed the billion-dollar mark last year, rising from $982,618,000 to $1,156,598,000.That's a 17.7 percent increase, lower than the 21.9 percent average posted by the nation's colleges and universities. But the bigger the endowment, the harder to keep up with the average.

Team of 1998 bears little resemblance to pride of Orioles pastFor the first time, I am totally and utterly embarrassed to be an Orioles fan.As if it is not bad enough that the Orioles are unable to win, the entire organization has shown a lack of drive, beginning with its lackluster performance against the Indians in the American League Championship Series last season and culminating with the recent series sweep to the expansion Devil Rays and the May...

In his 13 years as pastor of the Epworth United Methodist Chapel, the Rev. Horace L. Wallace has seen what pride of homeownership means to the people who live in Woodmoor."

Ravens owner Art Modell said yesterday that he was !c embarrassed, angry and his family disgraced after his team's 45-19 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, and he challenged the coaches and players to be accountable for the second half of the season.Modell would not comment on coach Ted Marchibroda's status, but team sources said Modell would not make a change before the season ended, unless the Ravens totally collapsed in the eight remaining games. In his third Ravens season, Marchibroda is 12-27-1, and the team is 1-3 at its new, $223 million stadium.

The Maryland Pride -- led by Colette Cunningham and Jan Anderson -- scored one goal in each half to defeat the visiting Central New Jersey Splash, 2-1, in a U.S. Women's League soccer game yesterday in Poolesville.Cunningham scored from 18 yards out on the weak side of the goal at the 35th minute, and Anderson's second-half tap-in came from 6 yards at the 49th minute.The Pride (7-1) outshot the Splash (1-7) by 30-10.Tina Pihl made three saves for the Pride, seven fewer than the Splash's Karen Little.

Audrey and Allen Murray plunked down $800 for a pregnant broodmare in late 1954 -- before they were even married. The mare, Rip Fleet, gave birth to a foal the Murrays sold as a yearling for $4,500.Nice return. Easy business.In business now for 43 years -- their Murmur Farm near Darlington in Harford County comprises 133 acres -- the Murrays quickly learned what nearly every horse breeder knows:Not always nice return. No easy business.But the Murrays persevered. And now in their early 60s, still working as hard as ever, they are enjoying the fruits of their labor.

My father made iron things - tooth gears and turnbuckles, flanges and valves - thousands of cast-iron parts for machines and manufacturing systems in dozens of factories during the height of post-World War II industrial production. He and his band of foundry brothers took pride in all that. It was hot, dirty and heavy labor, but every foundry man I knew took a moment now and then to admire a perfectly cast, clean-grinded widget needed for a growing American economy. Of course, most of those cast-iron things are probably gone now. A lot of the machinery for which my father made parts became obsolete.

Robert Lampe bakes a wicked chocolate bread. He also helps load cannons. He is the cook on the Pride of Baltimore II, a reproduction of the privateers that were built in the Chesapeake Bay and used during the War of 1812. The tall ship sails to ports around the world, representing the Port of Baltimore and the state of Maryland. This week it is scheduled to be in Jacksonville, Fla., en route to Bermuda. I met Lampe, a strapping 29-year-old, a few weeks ago, when the Pride was escorting the Carnival Pride cruise ship in its maiden voyage out of Baltimore's harbor.

Midfielder Ryan Carter scored the game-winning goal with 3.2 seconds left as sixth-ranked Hofstra rallied from a 10-7 deficit to win its seventh straight game, an 11-10 Colonial Athletic Association victory over Towson on Saturday at Johnny Unitas Stadium. The Pride (9-1, 5-0 league), which clinched a share of the CAA regular-season title with the victory, trailed by three goals with 8:33 remaining before rallying to defeat the Tigers (5-7, 3-2) for the fourth time in the five meetings.

Three games into the season, Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala said his concern no longer revolved around an offense that lost 62 percent of last year's production. His worry centered on a defense that seemed to struggle under preseason expectations. Pietramala got his wish yesterday as the No. 8 Blue Jays blanketed No. 9 Hofstra on both ends of the field in a convincing 12-7 victory before an announced 2,560 at Homewood Field. Sophomore attackman Kyle Wharton scored a career-high five goals for Johns Hopkins (3-1)

Hofstra 71, Towson 68 -Towson's Junior Hairston scored 23 points, including a three-pointer to tie the score with just more than a minute left, but host Hofstra completed a rally on Greg Washington's 15-foot jump shot with 30.9 seconds left to hand the Tigers their ninth loss in 10 games. Towson (8-17, 3-10 Colonial Athletic Association) held Hofstra without a basket for nearly 10 minutes to take a 33-21 lead with 4:41 left in the first half, but the Pride (15-9, 7-6) closed on an 8-0 run to trail 35-31 at halftime.

George Mason scored the final nine points to hold off Mount St. Mary's, 72-60, in a nonconference matchup at the Patriot Center last night. Trailing 56-43 with 9:30 left in the game, the Mount went on a 17-7 run to cut the deficit to 63-60 after a three-pointer by Jean Cajou. George Mason answered with a long jumper from Cam Long on the next possession to start the game-deciding run. The Mount held a 32-30 lead early in the second half after a three-point play by Jeremy Goode, but the Patriots (4-1)

Paul Rabil would not be denied this time. With the memory of his zero-point effort against Hofstra's Kevin Unterstein in March still fresh, Rabil out-dueled him in the rematch, scoring a game-high four goals to pace Johns Hopkins to a 10-4 victory over the Pride in the first round of the NCAA men's lacrosse tournament yesterday at Homewood Field. The fifth-seeded Blue Jays (9-5) extended their winning streak to six and earned a quarterfinals meeting with Navy on Saturday at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

No. 19 Towson trailed by one before giving up eight straight goals in the second half to No. 20 Hofstra as the host Pride won, 13-8, at Shuart Stadium in Hempstead, N.Y., last night. Anthony Muscarella led Hofstra (3-2, 1-0 Colonial Athletic Association) with a career-high five goals. Bill McCutcheon had a hat trick for the Tigers (1-4, 0-1), who have lost three of the past four meetings with the Pride. Tim Stratton gave Towson a 3-2 lead with 10:55 left in the first half, before Muscarella rattled off three straight goals and Hofstra took the lead for good.

Seth Tierney didn't need to be convinced of the potential of his Hofstra team, but the players welcomed some reassurance. That validation came Saturday when the then-unranked Pride (2-1) edged then-No. 1 Johns Hopkins, 8-7, in overtime, handing the reigning national champion its first loss of the season. No. 17 Hofstra's victory occurred just two weeks after the team opened the season with an 8-4 loss to a Massachusetts squad missing eight players suspended for an off-campus altercation.

Freshman Jay Card scored his fourth goal of the game off a failed Johns Hopkins clear with a little less than two minutes remaining in overtime to lift host Hofstra, 8-7, over the top-ranked Blue Jays yesterday. Card, who scored three goals in the first half as the Pride built a three-goal lead, entered the game with no goals in his first two career games. The loss ends a 12-game winning streak for the Blue Jays (3-1). Hofstra controlled the faceoff to start overtime, but the Blue Jays came up with a loose ball with just over two minutes remaining in the extra session.