Two Teams

TAMPA, Fla. -- The National Football League has a "realistic target" of expanding by two teams for the 1993 season, commissioner Paul Tagliabue said yesterday."

ESPN analyst Paul Carcaterra provided color commentary for fifth-seeded North Carolina's 16-7 rout of Lehigh and Cornell's 16-8 upset of sixth-seeded Maryland in a pair of NCAA tournament first-round contests this past weekend. The former Syracuse All-American midfielder, who can be followed on Twitter via @paulcarcaterra, will be part of the crew covering Saturday's quarterfinals in College Park and Sunday's quarterfinals in Indianapolis. Carcaterra offered his perspective on results that impressed and surprised him, concerns for the top two seeded teams and the most interesting quarterfinal.

Maryland Gov.-elect Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has indicated that he would be supportive of a second major-league baseball team in the region, but only if studies prove that it would not do serious economic harm to the Orioles. Ehrlich told The Washington Post on Friday that he was supportive of the efforts to bring big-league baseball back to the nation's capital, but a spokeswoman for the incoming governor said that his comments were based on the belief that the new team would draw from a different population base than the Orioles.

By no means do we consider the imbroglio over the decision to cut the baseball and men's soccer teams to be Towson University President Maravene Loeschke's finest moment. The announcement was not handled well, and there are real questions about the basis for the decision to eliminate the teams. But Comptroller Peter Franchot's call for her to resign over the matter is simply absurd. Mr. Franchot raised the issue of the eliminated teams at a Board of Public Works meeting a month ago, and Gov. Martin O'Malley, who hadn't previously been familiar with the matter, joined him in expressing concern.

Two teams who have enjoyed recent golfing success bolted to the front of the annual Baltimore two-man team championship with opening-round 67s yesterday at Mount Pleasant Golf Course.Brothers Joe and Dan Hoffman, the runner-up entry in the Maryland State two-man team chase two weeks ago, shot 34-3367 in reaching 4-under par over the 6,700-yard, par-71 layout.Later, they were joined by Bob Atwell and Ed Lipski, who also finished with 34-33. The latter side actually held the lead going to No. 9 (they had started on 10)

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Orioles owner Peter Angelos finds himself in an awkward position these days as the man most opposed to the idea of baseball moving a team to the nation's capital. When commissioner Bud Selig called the Washington area a prime candidate for relocation, Angelos didn't address the issue for two months. But Angelos finally broke his silence yesterday, in part of a wide-ranging telephone interview with The Sun, saying he opposes such a move because it would hurt the Orioles - and the Washington-area team, too. "Two teams," Angelos said, "within the present territory in which the Orioles' fan base lies, would guarantee that you'd probably have two also-rans or two non-competitive teams beginning each season with very little hope of progressing to the playoffs.

ESPN analyst Paul Carcaterra provided color commentary for fifth-seeded North Carolina's 16-7 rout of Lehigh and Cornell's 16-8 upset of sixth-seeded Maryland in a pair of NCAA tournament first-round contests this past weekend. The former Syracuse All-American midfielder, who can be followed on Twitter via @paulcarcaterra, will be part of the crew covering Saturday's quarterfinals in College Park and Sunday's quarterfinals in Indianapolis. Carcaterra offered his perspective on results that impressed and surprised him, concerns for the top two seeded teams and the most interesting quarterfinal.

Under a bright, sunny sky, a miniature rocket is poised for liftoff in a grassy field at Centennial High School in Ellicott City. "Five, four, three, two, one ... " counts down Kevin Johnson, a member of the National Association of Rocketry, before he flips a switch. Seconds later, a 28 1/2 -inch rocket ascends with flames shooting from its tail. After reaching about 1,200 feet, a red parachute appears and floats gracefully near a running track about 100 yards away. Back on the ground, eight excited students of Howard County public schools' Technology Magnet Energy Power and Transportation Program jump up and down, giving one another high-fives.

Despite the NFL's setback in court Tuesday, commissioner Paul Tagliabue is moving ahead with the expansion process.Yesterday Tagliabue named the final three members of the expansion committee that he will chair, and he announced that the committee will hold its first meeting in July.The three new members are Hugh Culverhouse of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Rankin Smith of the Atlanta Falcons and Alex Spanos of the San Diego Chargers.Smith and Spanos have rarely played a key role in league issues, but Tagliabue has said he wants to get more owners involved in league affairs.

Next week, for the first time in National Football Leagu history, the same two teams will play in back-to-back Super Bowls. Dallas won a ticket to the game when it outplayed San Francisco, 38-21; Buffalo when it trounced Kansas City, 30-13. Coverage, Pages 1C, 6-8C

Only for reasons beyond his control - the rules of USA Hockey, and its tradition of staging national championships in different parts of the country - must Bud Buonato settle for coaching just one team this week. His Howard Huskies Under-16 boys won the Maryland championship this season. That got them a bid to Troy, Mich., to compete on ice there for a national title. But their head coach is not with them. This is because Buonato also happened to coach the Huskies Under-18 team to the state title for its age group.

As a former college baseball coach, I implore Towson University President Maravene S. Loeschke to reconsider her decision to drop the school's baseball and soccer programs ("Ire grows after Towson president cuts two teams," March 24). We all know there are other, fairer solutions that would allow the school to be in compliance with Title IX, but they require more effort on her part. I have coached baseball for 27 years at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science, Lafayette College and Penn State University, and I cherished my relationship with Towson University coaches Billy Hunter and Mike Gottlieb.

The Blast has the ideal primer for the upcoming Major Indoor Soccer League playoffs as the team closes out its regular season at 1st Mariner Arena on Saturday - a game against the two-time defending league champion Milwaukee Wave. The rivalry is far and away the best and most intense in the MISL, with all the other franchises too new to have developed any on the same level. And this game - set for 7:35 p.m. - has plenty on the line with the teams tied for first place in the league.

Super Bowl XLVII is being billed as the Harbaugh Bowl: the battle between brothers Jim and John Harbaugh, head coaches, respectively, of the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens. It also pits two NFL teams connected directly and indirectly to the struggles for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. Read that last sentence again, and appreciate for a moment how far fighters for LGBT equality have traveled. In August, the 49ers became the first NFL franchise to film an "It Gets Better" video to combat anti-LGBT bullying in schools.

The Houston Texans lost their top tackler two weeks ago when middle linebacker Brian Cushing went down with a season-ending knee injury. A week later, they were embarrassed by the Green Bay Packers, 42-24, on their home field as Aaron Rodgers threw six touchdown passes, the Texans couldn't run the football and their special teams faltered. Earlier that day, the Ravens outlasted the mistake-prone Dallas Cowboys, 31-29. In the process, they lost their leading tackler (Ray Lewis) and best cornerback (Lardarius Webb)

Hundreds of swimmers are descending upon London for the 2012 Summer Olympics, but the sport also enjoyed a crowning moment in the local summer season this week in Hampstead. On Wednesday, July 25, a group of nearly 1,000 swimmers competed in the Central Maryland Swim League Straehle championship meet, and a handful of Carroll County athletes took home gold, silver and bronze medals - at least some with aspirations of one day mirroring their counterparts across the pond. "I want to go to the Olympics," said Allison Tomsuden, 10, a swimmer from South Carroll who swims during the winter at the same North Baltimore Aquatic Club that has produced Olympians Michael Phelps and Katie Hoff.

Pennsylvania@Drexel 10 a.m. [ESPN] I look at it this way: If these two teams are going to play basketball in the middle of the morning, the least you can do is watch. Plus, given that their campuses are next to each other, maybe parking spaces are on the line.

Baltimore should aggressively pursue an NFL expansion franchise, say respondents to "It's Your Call," even though they're not convinced the city will get one if the league decides to add two teams.Seventy-eight percent of those who called (342 of 440) said the city should continue to push aggressively for a team, but only 64 percent thought Baltimore would get a team if the NFL owners follow commissioner Paul Tagliabue's wishes to add two teams by 1993."It's Your Call" represents a sampling of opinions from certain segments of the community, but it is not balanced demographically, as would be done in a scientific public opinion poll.

Atholton Swim Club The Atholton Swim Club Barracudas lost their first dual meet of the 2012 season to the Westminster Stingrays, 248.5-225.5. Despite the loss, Barracuda swimmers posted 75 best times and Ally VanNetta set team records in the 11-12 girls individual medley and butterfly. Mitchell Haugh won his three individual events and swam on a winning relay team. Ally VanNetta also won her three individual events. Winning two individual events each and swimming for winning relay teams were Julia Habiger, Pinya, Ryan Murphy and Kaitlyn Warner.

The semifinal round of the Division III men's lacrosse NCAA tournament is over, and the championship final for Sunday is set. Here is the schedule: Sunday, May 27 (at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.) SUNY-Cortland (21-0) vs. Salisbury (22-0), 4 p.m. A little history: The all-time series between these two programs is split 5-5. Salisbury has won the last three meetings and is 3-2 against SUNY-Cortland in the NCAA tournament. The Sea Gulls won back-to-back NCAA titles in 2007 and 2008 against the Red Dragons.