Salisbury

Reigning national champion Salisbury has won the past 11 meetings and 14 of the last 15 with Washington College. But as the two sides prepare for the latest installment of the “War on the Shore” series Wednesday night in Chestertown, Sea Gulls coach Jim Berkman said he and his players have no intention of overlooking the Shoremen. “They've got a win over a team that beat us,” Berkman pointed out Monday. “They beat [Washington and Lee], 8-4, and we lost to W&L, 7-6. So they have a couple good wins on their schedule.

The end of Washington College's drought against Salisbury started to sink in as the Shoremen took a victory lap. Past the grandstand. Past hundreds of students who reveled on a hill overlooking Roy Kirby Jr. Stadium well after the game. Wednesday's 7-6 victory didn't erase a dozen straight losses in the "War on the Shore. " But it was another sign of how far Washington College has come in the past couple of years. "To me, it's a culmination of everything - highs and lows," senior attackman Bennett Cord said.

Fighting for a berth in the Centennial Conference tournament, No. 12 Washington College could have used a week to dissect last Saturday's 15-10 loss to No. 2 Dickinson and prepare for Saturday's road contest against Gettysburg. Instead, the Shoremen get the unenviable task of welcoming reigning national champion and No. 5 Salibury to Chestertown Wednesday night for its next installment of the “War on the Shore” annual series. In the past, the rivals have met on a Saturday, but because of Centennial Conference obligations, Washington (10-2)

Reigning national champion Salisbury was rewarded for Saturday's 15-4 rout of St. Mary's with the program's 17th Capital Athletic Conference regular-season title. The Seahawks (1993-94) and Stevenson (2009 and 2011) are the only other teams that have captured league championships, and the Sea Gulls (13-3 overall and 6-0 in the conference) assured themselves of the top seed and home-field advantage throughout the tournament. But Salisbury will not know its semifinal opponent until the upcoming weekend.

By virtue of their unblemished records in the Capital Athletic Conference, reigning national champion Salisbury and St. Mary's are in the driver's seat for the top two seeds and accompanying first-round byes in the league tournament. But that hasn't diluted the significance of Saturday's tilt at Seahawk Stadium in St. Mary's City. The Sea Gulls (12-3 overall and 5-0 in the conference) have finished in first place in the league 16 times since the CAC was formed for the 1993 season, but their reign of dominance ended in 2009 and 2011 when Stevenson took home the championships.

Salisbury's 10th annual Pork in the Park Festival is coming the weekend of April 19-21 to Winter Place Park. The centerpiece of the popular festival is the barbecue competition, one of the biggest competitions east of the Mississippi that's sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbecue Society. There's an amateur barbecue competition, too. And this year, the festival  introduces the Mountaire Farms Eastern Shore Wing War to the weekend's pork-heavy lineup.  On April 21, Salisbury-area restaurants will compete in a bracket-style wing competition, in which "the people" will decide who has created the best wings.

Anthony "A.J. " Williams works in science by day and in the sweet science by night. He's accustomed to the good-natured verbal jabs he takes about his pursuit of a boxing career. "They actually just make jokes about it all day every day," the 26-year-old fighter said of his colleagues at Parexel International, a bio/pharmaceutical services organization, where he works as a research technician in Baltimore. "When I was an amateur, I had to be clean-shaved. So I came into work with a pencil mustache looking like I was someone's father.

The ruptured spleen that sidelined senior midfielder Ryan Clarke for the remainder of the season just five games into 2013 may have created a vacuum among Salisbury's stable of standout players. Fortunately, Eric Kluge has stepped in to fill the void. The senior midfielder leads the No. 6 Sea Gulls (12-3) in goals with 32 and points with 41, and he led all scorers with four goals in the team's 24-4 walloping of Wesley on Wednesday night. Joined by juniors Greg Korvin (11 goals and 10 assists)

Rhiannon Coogle and Ashleigh Rohrback combined for six goals and three assists to lead the Towson women's lacrosse team to its fourth straight victory, 11-6 at American on Tuesday afternoon. The Tigers (5-7) and Eagles (6-8) traded goals early and were tied at 1 with 25:45 to play in the first half. Coogle scored on a free position at 24:25 to start a 5-0 run by the Tigers. She scored three times in that stretch to record her fourth straight hat trick. The Tigers eventually led 11-2.

Reigning national champion Salisbury has captured 17 league titles in the 20-year history of the Capital Athletic Conference (CAC), but this season's campaign may be the most critical to the program. Wednesday night's 10-8 loss to No. 3 Stevenson dropped the No. 6 Sea Gulls to 10-3 and may have endangered the team's bid for an at-large berth in the South Region of the NCAA tournament. Coach Jim Berkman also pointed out another side effect of the setback. “We might have lost the opportunity to host some playoff games,” he said.