Women S Game

The television exposure of NCAA men's and women's lacrosse took another step forward yesterday, when the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network announced that it will televise 14 games in 2007, including all four quarterfinal contests in the men's tournament. Starting with Sunday's game between the visiting Towson men's team and Loyola at noon, followed by the women's game between Loyola and visiting Hofstra, MASN will show at least one game a week in March, including a men's-women's doubleheader pitting Syracuse against host Georgetown on March 10. Ten of the games will be shown live, including both men's quarterfinal events on May 19. The May 20 quarterfinals will be televised on a tape-delay basis.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Six days ago, the Duke women's basketball team was the toast of its sport, summarily ending Tennessee's three-year reign atop women's basketball.But last night, 17,773 fans and a nationwide audience saw the Blue Devils go ablaze under the heat of top-ranked Purdue's blistering second-half performance that got the Boilermakers a 62-45 win in the national championship game.And the thing that seemed to catch Duke coach Gail Goestenkors by surprise was that the Blue Devils collapsed under the weight of the Purdue pressure after handling the vaunted Tennessee press.

MARTINSVILLE, N.J. -- Twenty women are scheduled to arrive by bus at the posh Pingry School for about 90 minutes of soccer practice this morning.Practice figures to be routine for the day before a big game -- probably polishing "set pieces," or tricky scoring plays for certain game situations, and light conditioning.But unlike practices earlier this week on what the 138-year-old school calls its "World Cup field," this one is secret. No doting 12-year-olds or their soccer moms and dads. No media allowed until 1 p.m. After that, it's solitude for these world-class athletes, time to reflect and focus.

Opponents say it's the beginning of the end for women's lacrosse as they know it. Proponents say it's necessary to make the game safer.It's the restraining line, long a part of the men's game but never the women's -- until now.This spring, NCAA women will play with restraining lines at the 30-yard lines. Only seven field players from each team may be on the goal side of the line at once.Most Baltimore-area Division I coaches say they favor the restraining line. They expect it to open up the arc, make the game safer and invigorate the transition game -- thus preserving the traditional style of the women's game.

WIMBLEDON, England -- It sure was tough to be a women's pro tennis player five years ago. The sport was stale, the tournament promoters were panicky and the media outlets were hostile."

Eight area players looking to catch the eyes of pro scouts will be playing in Saturday's Black College All-Star Classic at 1 p.m. at the Baltimore Arena.Antoine Brockington and Danny Singletary of Coppin State are featured in the men's game, which follows the women's game at around 3 p.m. Joining the Coppin pair will be Tremain Byrd, Lorenzo Hutchinson and Jerard Rucker of Morgan State.In the women's game, Tressan Dugan of Morgan State, Vanessa Valez of UMES and Brenonda Jackson of Bowie State will play.

RICHMOND, Va. -- In the beginning, there was the college game, which grew up in the 1970s, came of age in the '80s and reached the point in the 1990s where there had to be something more for America's best women's basketball players.They had waited so long. Waited for the same post-collegiate opportunities that the top male players have taken for granted the past half-century. Waited and wondered if there would ever be enough money -- and enough fan support -- to sustain women's professional basketball in the United States.

Two of the most dominant players in the history of women's soccer will be competing at RFK Stadium in Washington tomorrow as the United States plays Italy in the finale of this year's U.S. Women's Cup.American Mia Hamm, 25, widely called the best all-around player today, and Italy's Carolina Morace, 33, a remarkably consistent scorer for nearly two decades, will be the individual attractions in the 12: 30 p.m. game (ESPN).Both teams figure to arrive undefeated in the four-nation, friendly tournament co-sponsored by the Maryland and Virginia Youth Soccer Associations.

EMMITSBURG -- Amy Langville scored 14 of her game-high 19 points from the free-throw line to lead Mount St. Mary's to a 63-56 victory over American yesterday in a women's game at Knott Arena.The Mountaineers (3-4) held the Eagles (4-4) to 27 percent shooting to break their four-game losing streak. Ally Baker paced American with 15 points and 15 rebounds.Mount St. Mary's led 27-20 at halftime and never trailed in the second half. The Mount advantage grew to as many as 13 points at the 6:04 mark after Langville converted four consecutive free throws, including two on a technical foul assessed to American coach Jeff Thatcher.

Carolyn Rice, first-year coach of the Maryland Pride, won't guarantee a victory tonight when her team plays host to the Long Island Lady Rough Riders, defending U.S. Women's Interregional Soccer League champions.What she will promise is that the Pride, formerly known as the Baltimore Lady Bays, will give soccer fans at Catonsville Community College a look at the game in its most graceful form."We're looking to bring an exciting and attractive game to the field, which is what people like to see," said Rice, who also serves as an assistant coach for the under-16 national team.

When Cathy Reese started playing lacrosse at Maryland in 1995, there was no restraining line. Every player on the field could be in the scoring area. Now the Terrapins' coach, Reese is often met with amazement when she tells her players about her college days. "I tell them about how we didn't even have a restraining line and they're like, `What?' They can't believe it. They think it's the old dinosaur age, so long ago." The restraining line came to the women's game in 1998, Reese's senior year at Maryland, limiting each team to seven field players within 30 yards of the end line.

Gary Gait loves a lacrosse challenge. Since his All-America days at Syracuse 20 years ago, Gait has made an indelible mark on the sport at every turn. He revolutionized the men's game with his stick skills and acrobatic attack moves, winning more than a dozen championships on the college, pro and international levels. In 1994, he brought that same innovation and creativity to the women's game as an assistant coach at Maryland, inspiring a style of play that fueled a record seven-year run as NCAA Division I champion.

It may be opening day for the Orioles, but I'm still enjoying my recent memories of the first and second rounds of the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament at College Park. My husband and I had two reasons for attending. First, we are big fans of college sports, primarily our alma maters (the University of Maryland and the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana). It's not very often that you have a chance to attend the early rounds of a national tournament in your own backyard. But just as important for me is the fact that I played basketball at Maryland for a year in the late 1960s.

No, it's not time to register the domain name firebrenda.com. Or for any talk shows, message boards or column inches to be filled with fire-breathing venom about the wrong direction the program has taken. That kind of talk is reserved for the Maryland men's basketball team, of course. National championships don't have the same currency they once did, we've learned. The honeymoon in the women's program seems safe from a premature end. Still, in the wake of that debacle Tuesday night at the Hartford Civic Center, it is appropriate to ask the question: What the hell was that?

The television exposure of NCAA men's and women's lacrosse took another step forward yesterday, when the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network announced that it will televise 14 games in 2007, including all four quarterfinal contests in the men's tournament. Starting with Sunday's game between the visiting Towson men's team and Loyola at noon, followed by the women's game between Loyola and visiting Hofstra, MASN will show at least one game a week in March, including a men's-women's doubleheader pitting Syracuse against host Georgetown on March 10. Ten of the games will be shown live, including both men's quarterfinal events on May 19. The May 20 quarterfinals will be televised on a tape-delay basis.

Sun reporter Milton Kent's prediction for the women's Sweet 16, by regional sites. Greensboro, N.C. 1. Maryland Defending champ has all the necessary parts to repeat. 2. Tennessee Even with Candace Parker, the Lady Vols are under the national radar. 3. Purdue New coach Sharon Versyp takes over a talented Boilermakers squad. 4. California Former Duke assistant Joanne Boyle is building a power at Berkeley. Fresno, Calif. 1. Stanford Candice Wiggins is ready to lead Cardinal return to prominence.

You had to get up early to watch Michelle Wie in the second round of the LPGA Championship yesterday at Bulle Rock. She teed off before 8 a.m. The thousands of fans who came out were richly rewarded. Wie blasted long drives into the high blue sky, sank some birdie putts and finished with a 68 that could easily have been four strokes better. "She left a few shots out there, for sure. This isn't a terribly hard course for her. I could easily see her shooting a 63 or 64 in one of the weekend rounds," said her instructor, David Leadbetter, the renowned swing coach who has mostly tutored men's champions such as Nick Faldo and Ernie Els. Her round put her in position to compete for the championship - she finished second in this tournament a year ago - and also illustrated why many of the questions she seems to generate are irrelevant.

BOSTON -- The WNBA draft came soon after the NCAA women's championship game -- a little too soon, perhaps, for three Duke players still agonizing over their 78-75 overtime loss to Maryland on Tuesday. Wednesday afternoon, Duke's Monique Currie went No. 3 in the draft, while teammates Mistie Williams (second round) and Jessica Foley (third round) were selected, too. Three other first-round picks were from teams that also felt the sting of Final Four defeat: No. 1 selection Seimone Augustus of LSU, No. 9 La'Tangela Atkinson of North Carolina and No. 14 Scholanda Hoston of LSU. Also taken among the 14 players in the first round were four whose seasons ended in the Elite Eight and three who made it as far as the Sweet 16. And what college team was totally absent from the draft?

Boston -- The confetti was still fluttering to the arena floor when it became clear that the world of women's college basketball had just set foot into the future. We had a slight glimpse of it last season when unheralded Baylor injected some parity into the list of women's NCAA champions. But the Bears were one and done. The Maryland Terrapins, bolstered by a young lineup, a young coach and high schoolers lining up to play in College Park are poised for a reign that has no obvious end in sight.

A couple schools of thought have emerged in the wake of Tennessee forward Candace Parker's two dunks in Sunday's first-round NCAA tournament win over Army. The first is that the dunks are the first step along the way toward women's basketball's being taken seriously by the casual American sports fan, with the second being that they really weren't dunks, but rather glorified layups. In the end, neither thought is really important. For that matter, neither were the dunks, especially for those who are true fans of the sport.