Striker

After leading the Baltimore Bays Chelsea under-18/18 club to a 3-0 mark at the U.S. Soccer Develpment Academy playoffs last week, goalie Andrew Harris (Gilman) and striker Mike Gamble (McDonogh) were named to Top Drawer Soccer's Best XI for the tournament. In winning Group 8 and advancing to the Finals Week, set for July 16-23 in Houston, Harris finished with a 0.66 goals against and Gamble scored two goals in the three wins.  Both players will play at Wake Forest in the fall.

After leading the Baltimore Bays Chelsea under-18/18 club to a 3-0 mark at the U.S. Soccer Develpment Academy playoffs last week, goalie Andrew Harris (Gilman) and striker Mike Gamble (McDonogh) were named to Top Drawer Soccer's Best XI for the tournament. In winning Group 8 and advancing to the Finals Week, set for July 16-23 in Houston, Harris finished with a 0.66 goals against and Gamble scored two goals in the three wins.  Both players will play at Wake Forest in the fall.

When Jerry Tobin lost his all-state goalkeeper before the season, the St. Mary's soccer coach never even whimpered.No wonder, because, instead, he got a high-scoring striker.Such was the transformation of junior Erin Hon, who, Tobin noted last month, was a goalie who "does it all." She displayed good moves and judgment, an ability to dive parallel to the ground and the leadership to direct the defense.So, why did Hon open the season as a striker? One who accumulated six goals and an assist in St. Mary's first two games and was saluted as The Baltimore Sun's Female Metro Athlete of the Week?

Basketball Maryland commitment Jake Layman is among 14 finalists who have been selected to continue competing for a spot on the USA Basketball Under-18 men's national team. The 14 finalists, announced late Thursday night, will continue to train through Monday at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. The 12-man team will be selected before the team's Tuesday departure for the FIBA Americas U18 Championship, which will be played June 16-20 in Sao Sebastiáo do Paraiso, Brazil.

Severna Park's Brian Peterson is a marked man on the soccer field.In his third season as the Falcons' midfielder last year, Peterson scored 11 goals with four assists. This year, Coach Don Gregg has moved him to striker, where he's even more dangerous."His best place on the team is up front," said Peterson's goal-keeping teammate, Jason Zaks. "He could attack from the midfield last year, but up there, he's a real weapon. Everything revolves around him."Peterson enters tonight's game against visiting Broadneck with 32 career goals and 12 assists, and he's going to draw a lot of attention from Bruins' coach Kevin McMullen.

Growing bored with kickball in gym class back in fourth grade, Jamie Dubyoski set his sights on an added challenge. So instead of just clobbering the ball off the gym's back wall and racing around the bases for yet another home run, he looked up at the basketball hoop at the same far end. Dubyoski had a strong right leg, but what about good aim? "Yeah," he said with a smile. "I hit the backboard a few times over the years. " Now a junior at Loyola Blakefield, Dubyoski is putting his right leg and much more to good use in a couple ways.

Three county high school soccer players were named All-Americans at the Maryland Association of Soccer Coaches meeting Sunday night.Five county players were named to the All-South squad, and 13 made first-team All-State.Samantha Andersch and Jackie Rieschick of Hammond were the only girls in the state named All-Americans.Hamisi Amani-Dove was namedone of two state All-Americans along with Mark Jonas of Bowie High School in Prince George's County.Andersch is a striker and Rieschick a sweeper for the Bears' Class 1A/2A Region I championship team.

Soccer Leeds -- Signed striker Brian Deane, the leading scorer for Sheffield United last season, to a four-year deal reportedly worth $4.29 million.

Player of the Year: Amity Torbit, John Carroll;/ Coach of the Year: Nancy Ferguson, FallstonFirst team Name School Class PositionKatie Nietubicz John Carroll Senior StrikerAmity Torbit John Carroll Senior StrikerAmanda Fouts C. Milton Wright Junior MidfieldAmanda McCulloch C. Milton Wright Senior MidfieldPam Toth Fallston Senior MidfieldCheryl Ulrich Joppatowne Senior MidfieldMelisa Billings C. Milton Wright Junior DefenseTonia Bruno North Harford Senior...

Chris Borcik (Striker, Franklin) The senior is one of the area's most exciting playmakers Kaiser Chowdhry (Striker, McDonogh) Racked up 17 goals and All-Metro honors as a junior. Mike Lookingland (Fullback, Loyola) All-Metro defender also showed scoring punch as a junior.

Vintage Civil War era "base ball" exhibition introduced fans to some new terms, but in many ways the game is the same. In base ball — as in the vintage circa 1865-style, two-word version of the all-American pastime — you not only have the exhilarating crack of the narrow bat hitting a slow, underhand-"hurled" (pitched), straw-filled ball. You also have the sharp smack — as in "ouch!" — of a sharply hit "stinger" (line drive) rocketing into a "ballist's" (fielder's)

McDonogh junior soccer standout Mike Gamble, regarded as one of the top youth soccer forwards in the country, has made a verbal commitment to play at Wake Forest University. Gamble led No. 6 McDonogh (18-6-1) to a runner-up finish in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association 'A' Conference this season, scoring 28 goals and adding 10 assists. The Eagles fell to No. 1 Gilman, 1-0, in Sunday's championship game. "At first, I didn't really know much about [Wake Forest], but when I went down and talked with the coaches and some of the players, I liked the campus and had a great feeling about it. It was somewhere I wanted to be," said Gamble.

Growing bored with kickball in gym class back in fourth grade, Jamie Dubyoski set his sights on an added challenge. So instead of just clobbering the ball off the gym's back wall and racing around the bases for yet another home run, he looked up at the basketball hoop at the same far end. Dubyoski had a strong right leg, but what about good aim? "Yeah," he said with a smile. "I hit the backboard a few times over the years. " Now a junior at Loyola Blakefield, Dubyoski is putting his right leg and much more to good use in a couple ways.

Landon Donovan got the goal. Jozy Altidore got the cuts and bruises. On Thursday, the day after the most memorable victory in decades for U.S. soccer, both players were holding court near the American team's rural base in Irene. For obvious reasons, the larger media crowd was gathered around three-time World Cup veteran Donovan. The argument could easily be made, however, that Altidore was just as responsible for beating Algeria. Certainly, Algeria was responsible for beating him. As the main U.S. target man up front, Altidore was constantly hacked, kicked, tripped, shoved and generally roughed up during the 1-0 win — as much as anyone can rough up a player of his size and strength.

It is probably fair to say that Slovenia knows as much about Clint Dempsey as Clint Dempsey knows about Slovenia. A lot of Americans were sent scrambling for maps in December when the U.S. was drawn to play the Eastern European country in the World Cup. Many had never heard of it. Similarly, there weren't many people in Ljubljana, Maribor or Kranj who had any knowledge about the man from Nacogdoches, Texas. On Friday afternoon, at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg, they could find out. It used to be that Landon Donovan was the player that everyone counted on to carry the load for the U.S. Then it was Donovan and goalkeeper Tim Howard.

BEIJING — He is the new public face of North Korea: Jong Tae-se is a 26-year-old publicity hound with his own blog, where he strikes a sultry, bare-chested pose. He has appeared in television commercials. He drives a silver Hummer and likes to dress like hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur. When he goes on the road, he travels with a laptop, iPod and sometimes a Nintendo DS and a Sony PlayStation Portable. Jong is the star striker of North Korea's 2010 World Cup team. That makes him at this particular moment the most recognizable living North Korean, with the possible exception of the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il. This is the first time North Korea has qualified for the World Cup since 1966.

Freshman striker Amy Stone scored twice as defending regional champion Essex Community College (14-1-1) shut out visiting Anne Arundel CC (7-14), 3-0, in semifinal action of the National Junior College Athletic Association Region XX women's soccer tournament at Catonsville CC.Essex faces Catonsville tomorrow at 1 p.m.Sophomore striker Stacey Schott assisted on both goals.Sophomore striker Jill Fennekohl added a goal.* Catonsville 1, Montgomery-Rockville 0: Freshman halfback Mindy Bankert scored the game-winner with 16:06 left in the first half on an assist by freshman striker Jen McGuire as Catonsville (13-4-1)

All-City/Baltimore County boys soccer teamCo-Players of the Year: Giuliano Celenza, Curley, and Tom Tamberrino, Calvert Hall?3 Coach of the Year: Bill Karpovich, Calvert HallFIRST TEAMName ............... School ........ Year ...... PositionGiuliano Celenza ... Curley ........ Senior .... StrikerCam Letke .......... Calvert Hall .. Junior .... StrikerGuillermo Pineda ... Patterson ..... Junior .... StrikerBrian Powell ....... Calvert Hall .. Junior .... StrikerTodd Tabor ......... Perry Hall .... Senior .... StrikerJoe Capone .....

The Australians were complaining Friday about the threadbare state of the Ruimsig Stadium field in the South African town of Roodepoort. The Americans, meanwhile, were sweating out an injury to starting striker Jozy Altidore. The two countries play each other at the stadium today in the final World Cup tuneup for both, but it is Altidore's situation that is the more troubling. The striker's right ankle was hurt during training Wednesday, and Friday evening U.S. Soccer still had him listed as "day-to-day."

Mayor Sheila Dixon will meet tomorrow with students from the Algebra Project, a mentoring group whose members have been staging a hunger strike since Friday to win city funding for a program they say would provide about 1,000 jobs to young people. Dixon said last night that she agreed to meet with the students to discuss ways to find outside funding for Peer to Peer Enterprises, but that she will not pledge the $3 million in city money the students are demanding. The 13 students participating in the strike say they will not eat solid food until Dixon pays to expand the program.