Volleyball

BOYS Terence Garvin Loyola, football Garvin led the top-ranked Dons (4-0) to a 35-14 victory over Fork Union Military Academy, a Virginia prep school powerhouse that has a couple of Division I-bound players and some fifth-year 19-year olds. Garvin, a 6-foot-2, 200-pound junior running back-defensive back, rushed for 164 yards and two touchdowns on 21 attempts. Both of Garvin's touchdown runs - from 2 and 38 yards out - came in the second half. His second score gave the Dons a 28-14 lead with 9:15 left in the game.

When Western volleyball coach Anna Gibbs began working to bring a nest of Starlings Volleyball Clubs, USA to Baltimore two years ago, she never dreamed she was opening a new career path.Her only goal was that of the Starlings organization: bringing low-cost club volleyball to inner-city girls.As she did that, however, Gibbs launched herself on a course that has taken her to San Diego as the rapidly growing, nationwide Starlings' director of development.When she was first offered the job in July, Gibbs said she felt she could not leave Baltimore and the girls that she has mentored on and off the court.

Severna Park's Lauren Boyd, The Sun's Anne Arundel County volleyball Player of the Year and a two-time All-Metro selection, will attend Gettysburg (Pa.) College on an academic scholarship.Boyd also considered Bucknell, Mary Washington College and Franklin & Marshall before deciding to wearing the orange and blue of the highly rated, NCAA Division III Bullets."Gettysburg fits me best, academically and athletically," she said.With a weighted grade-point average well over 4.00 and a 1,260 SAT score, Boyd, who is also yearbook editor, defines the term student-athlete.

MANY ASSOCIATE the Howard County Youth Program with the ball fields tucked into the Kiwanis Wallas Park in Ellicott City. Little League was played on the fields in 1954. The program now involves more than 7,000 families in four sports at sites around the county.The programs provide a variety of levels of play for boys and girls ages 6 to 18. All children may play regardless of the family's ability to pay, says Mary Jane Rudnicki, HCYP's volleyball commissioner.She is one of four commissioners, all Ellicott City residents, who each oversee a sport.

It's not difficult to spot Shannon Patrick when River Hill, The Sun's second-ranked volleyball team, takes the floor.The 5-foot-8 senior is in constant motion -- with her feet and her mouth."

Joseph Nelson Howard Jr., an independent grocer, food dealers' association official and volleyball enthusiast, died Monday from complications of pneumonia at the Franklin Woods Center. He was 67 and lived in Perry Hall.In 1978, Mr. Howard took over Howard's Bi-Rite, his father's Hamilton grocery store on Harford Road.He began helping his father in the store when he was 12, and learned the business while attending Polytechnic Institute.He met his wife, the former Charlotte L. Straub, while working at Howard's.

The Sun's All-Metro special section will run Monday. It will feature the area's best athletes in football, boys soccer, girls soccer, field hockey, cross country and volleyball.

Out of a series of contrasts comes the Morgan State women's volleyball team, which has the nation's third-longest current conference winning streak heading into this weekend's Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament at Hill Field House.Take a young woman from the Midwest who is one of nine blacks in a Kansas City high school of 2,000 whites. Then after a year at 25,000-student State U., throw her into an all-black college one-fifth the size, and 1,100 miles away.What happens is that the woman, Ramona Riley-Bozier, becomes a star sprinter at Morgan State, running the first leg on a 400-meter relay team that holds a 15-year-old school record.

Athletes constantly talk of giving more than 100 percent, but South Carroll senior setter Brianna Schell actually gives it.Schell's penchant for diving after loose balls has garnered good-natured ribbing from Cavaliers coach Debbie Eaton."

The South Carroll girls volleyball team captured its eighth straight victory and seventh straight sweep last night, defeating North Carroll, 15-7, 16-14, 15-5.The Cavaliers now share first place with Liberty in Carroll County with a 4-1 record.South Carroll also remained in the hunt for the Central Maryland Conference title with a 9-2 overall record.South Carroll coach Debbie Eaton is proud of the streak, but she pointed out that none of the games has been easy."We're not blowing anyone away at all," she said.

The late-blooming and stellar volleyball career of John Carroll grad Andrew Cranford began with a watchful eye and a positive push. A three-sport athlete who grew up taking turns among soccer, basketball and lacrosse, Cranford was unexpectedly cut from the soccer team in 2002, his sophomore year. It opened the door for volleyball, a sport he had never played until he stepped onto the court in his junior year. Cranford, a 6-foot-5 middle hitter, went on to enjoy a stellar four-year career at Stevens Institute of Technology before getting a taste of professional volleyball in Germany, from which he recently returned after a month with a team in Rottenburg.

Covenant Community School's Lillie Happel and Mount de Sales' Katy Buck have been best friends since they were 10 years old. They grew up playing volleyball together, and it has earned both of them college scholarships. On Thursday night, however the battle lines were drawn. Chalk one up for Buck and Mount de Sales. Buck recorded 11 kills, five digs and five aces as her top-ranked Sailors (13-0) defeated the No. 10 Bravehearts, 25-14, 25-12, 25-23, in a key game for both teams. Happel had 11 kills, one block and one ace. "We joked about trash-talking through the net," said Happel, who will play volleyball at Liberty University next year.

A group of Maryland teen volleyball players was released Monday from a quarantined Beijing hotel, where they had been held after taking the same flight as a person who later developed illness from the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu. Tarver Shimek, 16, a rising senior at Towson High School, said she was glad to be able to finish a trip with fellow travelers from the Maryland Junior Volleyball Club. As Chinese authorities assessed her health risks, she spent more than three days in the hotel, she said, making up games like "hotel tag" with other teenagers.

Caroline Jacobs is no stranger to success. Recently, the Broadneck senior rang up 12 kills, four aces and three blocks against Thomas Johnson, helping lead her team to its second straight Class 4A state volleyball title. But her triumphs off the court are perhaps even more impressive. She holds a 3.92 grade point average, volunteers at a center that helps cancer patients and learned last week that she has been accepted into the U.S. Naval Academy. I know your family has been hosting midshipmen for quite a few years.

First-year Pikesville football coach Jamie Willis came into this season with admittedly modest goals after taking over a team that won just two games a year ago. "When I took the job, I told the kids in our first meeting that we're going to work hard and get what we deserve," Willis said. Never did he imagine his Panthers would earn a spot in the regional final. That's where they are, however, as they will host Catoctin tomorrow in the 2A North final. The Panthers (7-4) already have left their mark, winning their first postseason game ever, 22-18 over New Town last week.

COLLEGE PARK - Liberty's Amanda McCracken gets teased by her teammates because she doesn't show much emotion on the volleyball court. "I love volleyball, but I've never been real loud," said the senior. "I just want to go out and do well, and then do it again. Even McCracken, however, couldn't miss the significance of No. 10 Liberty's 25-17, 25-21, 21-15 victory over Rising Sun in the Class 2A state championship yesterday at the University of Maryland's Ritchie Coliseum. The Tigers (12-7)

At one point during summer 2007, the volume of mail arriving at Bailey Webster's Towson home so overwhelmed the postal carrier that she knocked on the door asking to meet the person getting so much mail. When the door opened, she met the No. 1 volleyball prospect in the nation, a 6-foot-3 powerhouse of a hitter for St. Paul's. More than 200 coaches initially recruited her, inundating her with letters and media guides. "At one point, we were getting 25 to 30 pieces of mail just for her a day, and that doesn't include e-mail," said her mother, Cedrina Webster.

Baseball had been James Hennessy's top sport until the C. Milton Wright senior found his niche in volleyball. Now, the 6-foot-1 outside hitter is considered one of the top all-around players in Harford County, recently leading the Mustangs to a 15-0 regular season. In a recent interview, Hennessy talked about his passion for volleyball, which is largely unheralded as a boys sport throughout the rest of the state, as well as his plans for the future and his summer volunteering at a camp in Colorado.

St. Paul's Bailey Webster wanted to go to a college with a big-time sports program. As the nation's No. 1 volleyball recruit, she had her pick of most of them. Yesterday, the 6-foot-3 outside hitter said she had chosen Texas. "When I went there, I felt like I fit in," Webster, 17, said. "I loved the girls and I loved the teams. I wanted to go to a big school that was good in sports. They're top five in volleyball, No. 1 in football and top five in basketball, so you can't do much better than that.

Reservoir and Howard joined together last week to help raise money for the Side-Out Foundation, which works to raise awareness of breast cancer through volleyball activities. Reservoir coach Carole Ferrante, whose team organized the event, said the Gators set a goal of $2,000 and by the end of the night had surpassed that mark. "We don't know exactly how much we've raised," Ferrante said. "It was over $2,000 at the school, but people can also give online, and that fund drive is still going on. So we're raising our goal to $3,000."