Tennis Team

Senior Heather Swearingen and sophomores Erin Updegrove and Paul Shearer head The Baltimore Sun's All-Harford County tennis team.Shearer, from Fallston, was the top boy, going unbeaten in the county and finishing third in the region with a 14-1 record.The No. 1 girls honor was shared by Swearingen (15-3) of Havre de Grace and Updegrove (15-3) of C. Milton Wright. They beat everybody else in the county and beat each other.Completing the team are Susan Renner and Kate Corea of C. Milton Wright, girls doubles; Ryan Vandrey and Mike Baldwin of Aberdeen, boys doubles; and Alison Beach and Mike Hielke of C. Milton Wright, mixed doubles.

Despite receiving its biggest single payday in the history of the athletic program last week, Towson University  might not be able to avoid the financial reality that has affected many larger schools in recent years. Three days after taking home a check for $510,000 from its nationally televised football game at LSU on Saturday, Towson announced Tuesday that it is recommending cutting the school's baseball and men's soccer as part of the athletic program's reorganization. Third-year athletic director Mike Waddell said in an interview that he began meeting with the coaches and athletes of the teams involved around 8 a.m. Tuesday and continued to meet with staff members and athletes who had morning class later in the day. Waddell said the athletic department has been studying possible changes for about 18 months but kept coming to the same answer.

Anne Arundel Community College's men's tennis team is 3-1 going into today's match at Prince George's, but coach Joe Hayes doesn't worry much about regular-season records, no matter how good they are.It's the Region XX Tournament, on Oct. 30, that counts."

The deadline for submitting sports copy is 9 a.m. on Mondays. We prefer email (howardcountysports@patuxent.com). We do not accept results by phone. When two Howard County teams play, players from both teams (first and last names) must be mentioned in the write-up. Questions? Call 410-332-6606. Tennis Awesome Aces The Howard County Awesome Aces junior tennis team competed in the Maryland State Championships held at the Tennis Center at College Park recently. The Quick Start Tennis 8-U Purple team and the 12-U Beginner/Ravens won first place in the state.

With hometowns listed in the Soviet Union, Argentina, Mexico and Texas, it is one of the more interesting rosters to come in the mail. When Fred Wyman went about making Washington College a Division III power in men's tennis, he tried and liked the international route.A miler at Florida in the 1960s who has a dentistry practice in Chestertown, Wyman coached softball at the college in the early 1980s. He inherited the men's tennis team from Tom Finnegan after the 1984 season, and ever since the telephone people have liked the way he recruits.

Camille Belliard and Peter Wulff traveled a long way to play tennis together at Bel Air High School -- about 3,000 miles.Home for Belliard, 15, is France, and home for Wulff, 17, is Denmark. As American Field Service (AFS) exchange students, they have spent the last year living with local families and attending classes at Bel Air.Neither spent much time on the sidelines back home, so both dove into sports at Bel Air. Together, they finished second in mixed doubles at the Harford County Tennis Tournament two weeks ago.Bel Air coach Nancy Dove said she didn't put them together for any particular reason, but she has been pleasantly surprised with the result.

Want to know how important Nancy Turnblacer has been to Loyola College's run of four consecutive NCAA women's tennis tournament berths? "I'll need two players to replace her," said Loyola coach Rick McClure. "I miss her already, and she hasn't even left yet. We'll find out next Thursday who we'll be playing in the NCAAs." Severna Park's Turnblacer has put together a 59-39 career singles record while playing No. 1 all four years for the Greyhounds, and she is 54-21 in doubles. Turnblacer has dominated the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference on the court and in the classroom for four years, being a two-time league MVP and a three-time All-MAAC Academic selection.

McDonogh's tennis team, coached by Laddie Levy, goes after its seventh straight MIAA A Conference title and its 80th straight league match victory tomorrow at 3: 15 when it plays host to regular-season runner-up Gilman.McDonogh finshed the regular season at 9-0 and 12-1 overall, its only loss coming against New Jersey state champ Newark Academy, which entered their battle ranked fourth nationally and having won more than 90 consecutive matches.The conference individual championships will begin Monday.

With just two returnees back from last year's 6-3 squad, the Anne Arundel Community College tennis team has put together a more than respectable men's tennis contingent.Rookie coach Joe Hayes' squad upped both its overall and Maryland Junior College Conference record to 7-1 Friday with an 8-1 win over Essex -- its seventh victory in a row.Hayes, whose second-place team will face Harford Community College tomorrow to wrap up the regular season, credits a well-balanced starting seven for his team's success.

A county tennis team is doing its best to emulate the Minnesota Twins, the American League baseball champions, to produce its own versionof "worst to first."The Bay Ladies, a team of 14 women ages 38-49 from Arnold and Severna Park, will become a part of history tomorrow morning, as they vie against 16 other sectional champions for the U.S. Tennis Association 3.0 level (beginning/intermediate) National Team Championships in Palm Springs, Calif.The Ladies became the first women's team from the county to earn a trip to the USTA-sanctioned national tournament, as it finished first in August's Mid-Atlantic Regional, defeating Virginia finalists Richmond, Lynchburg, Northern Virginia and Shenandoah.

Domination is a foreign concept in the modern-day world of sports. Champions rarely repeat, and the playing field seems more level than ever. There are two exceptions to this rule in Carroll County. Paige Olson began and ended her Century tennis career as a champion, and Hannah Oneda of Winters Mill simply ran away from the competition in cross country and track and field. Their exceptional athletic achievements, standout performances in the classroom, and a willingness to serve their school and community have earned Olson and Oneda the Carroll Eagle's Spring Student-Athlete Award.

Dr. John J. Darrell, a retired Randallstown family practice physician, died of congestive heart failure Dec. 23 at the Carroll Hospice Dove House in Westminster. He was 84 and lived in Owings Mills. Born in Baltimore and raised in Highlandtown, he attended Sacred Heart of Jesus School and Charlotte Hall Military Academy in Leonardtown. He was a 1946 graduate of Loyola High School, where he was a member of the tennis team. He remained active in the sport throughout his life and later was an assistant tennis coach at Randallstown High School.

Going into her junior year, Audrey Todd had already been part of two Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference tennis championships for Roland Park, sharing the first one with Bryn Mawr. Her third chance last week — when the Reds came away winners in the four-day tournament capped on Thursday — was even more special. Also in the middle of the excitement was Audrey's younger sister, Ava, a freshman who made an instant impact. Audrey won at No. 1 singles — avenging her only loss of the season by defeating McDonogh's Kristina Centenari, 7-5, 6-4 to finish 8-1 — and Ava finished the season 9-0 at No. 2 singles by beating St. Paul's Marta Cherpak, 6-0, 6-1. Audrey, who also plays varsity lacrosse at Roland Park, and Ava are both 'A' students at Roland Park.

Three years ago, Mount St. Joseph's tennis team finished 0-10, but if the Gaels' early-season exploits are any indication, they just might be headed for the best tennis season in school history. They opened with their first-ever win over McDonogh, the two-time defending Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference champion and one of two teams with a chokehold on the conference title for 14 years. McDonogh and Gilman have won every title during that stretch except in 2001, when Calvert Hall took it. The Gaels are hoping this will be their year.

Erika Richardson has been one of the most consistent players on the surprising Patterson Mill tennis team this spring. Richardson plays doubles for the first-year school. The Huskies have led the Upper Chesapeake Bay Athletic Conference's Susquehanna Division most of the season, and were unbeaten in the division through the middle of last week. She enjoys playing tennis with members of her family, including cousins Megan and Garrett Lange, who play for Bel Air. Richardson, a freshman, is a honor roll student and tutors middle-school students.

Randy Fowler is - as he has said himself - "no fool." So when Fowler, formerly the cross country coach at Mercy, was hired to head the Calvert Hall cross country program beginning next fall, Fowler took a page from the Cardinals' archives and hired Jim McCoach as his assistant. McCoach was the architect of a Calvert Hall dynasty that captured seven Maryland Scholastic Association and Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association championships in cross country during the 1990s. Most recently, McCoach started the cross country program at Maryvale, where he earned All-Metro Coach of the Year honors in 2001.

Poly won two championships at yesterday's Baltimore City/District IX tennis tournament. Blair Fleet won her first singles title for the Engineers after twice falling in the finals, beating Shatira Kimbrough (Western), 7-5, 6-2. The girls doubles team of Jamie Fleet and Kristen Spence gave Poly its second title. Fleet and Spence rolled to a 6-0, 6-1 victory over Ivy Perez and Kendra Huggins of Western. Anthien Nguyen and Elton Buckett of DuBois were the only repeat champions. The boys doubles team pulled out a 6-4, 7-6 (7-1)