Wrestling Team

An Atholton High School wrestling coach was fired last week in the wake of a Jan. 19 incident in which he pulled down the sweat pants of a cheerleader in the presence of about 20 wrestlers and eight or nine cheerleaders."

When Paul Triplett thinks about the Gilman wrestling team, his mind goes back to a cold day in 1990. That was the last time his top-ranked Mount St. Joseph wrestling team lost to the Greyhounds, dropping five of the final six matches and bowing by one point.That's also why beating Gilman has taken on extra meaning.Last night, the Gaels did just that, winning nine of 13 weight classes en route to a 36-24 Maryland Scholastic Association A Conference win at No. 8 Gilman.The victory didn't come easily, but Triplett knew it wouldn't.

Somewhere in his past, recent or distant, Paul Triplett must have gotten a four-of-a-kind in a poker game, hit on a 16 playing blackjack and won or just plain had a really good day in Vegas or Atlantic City. What else explains the remarkable run of good fortune Triplett is having as athletic director at Mount St. Joseph, which has No. 1 teams in three sports, boys basketball, indoor track and wrestling? "It's been fun for me as the athletic director because the kids have been doing such a great job and they work their butts off," Triplett said.

Chuck Hart and Butch Jansen, clutching at one another's short jackets, appeared locked in a ritual dance as they grappled for advantage.Almost faster than the eye could follow, Butch tugged Chuck forward and spun. Chuck flipped over his hip into the air and crashed helplessly on his back, with Butch -- who had somersaulted -- perched on his chest."That's sambo -- total victory," said Butch, who is more formally Officer Onas W. Jansen of the Baltimore County Police Department.His conquest of Chuck -- Officer Chauncey W. Hart -- demonstrated why Officer Jansen was selected recently for the U.S. team that will compete in December in Moscow in the World Sambo Wrestling Championships.

Western Maryland is doing a little shopping of its own this holiday season, beginning the search for two new head coaches.The school is looking for successors to football coach Dale Sprague and volleyball coach Jolene Hoover, both of whom resigned earlier this month.The college will advertise the openings beginning next week in the NCAA News, according to associate director of athletics Carol Fritz.She said the school also will send announcements to all Middle Atlantic Conference schools and others that may be interested.

In only his second season in wrestling, Parkville's Yousef Mohamed, a 171-pound senior, is 27-0 with 24 pins, a technical fall, a major decision and a forfeit. Mohamed, 18, gained a measure of revenge with a 56-second pin of Milford Mill's Charles Blue in the finals of the Overlea tournament, as Blue had eliminated Mohamed from last year's Baltimore County tournament with a pin in 2:28. Playing football for the first time this past fall, the 6-foot Mohamed made 15 sacks as a defensive end. He was voted to the coaches' All-Baltimore County football team.

Last year, the Calvert Hall ice hockey program accomplished a huge goal when it knocked off nine-time Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association champion Mount St. Joseph to win the A Conference title. The Cardinals defended the title this year and went a step further. Calvert Hall (20-4-4) used a hat trick by Andrew Klick to defeat perennial D.C.-area power DeMatha (21-17-2), 5-0, to win the Mid-Atlantic Prep Hockey League title at the Gardens Ice House in Laurel. The championship, essentially the Maryland state championship in hockey, was another first.

Hammond's wrestling team still is smoking.The Bears (6-0) have eclipsed their most recent opponents -- Atholton, Liberty and Chopticon -- by a combined, 173-28. That's an average of 57.6 to 9.3 if you're counting.Triple-winners over the course of those matches were Amit Kapoor (103, 12-3), Mike Chang (112, 13-2), Ryan Armstrong (125, 10-6), John Motley (130, 12-4), Brian Law (135, 11-3), Danny Proulx (140, 3-0), Chris Williams (152, 13-2), Jimmy Weston (hvy, 12-3) and Pedro Barbosa (hvy, 13-4)

It appeared to be business as usual for three-time state wrestling champion Josh Asper in his season-opening match last week. When the 171-pound senior standout from Hereford came away with a first-period pin over Catonsville's Eric Swaboda on Dec. 11, he extended his undefeated streak to 51 matches to help lead the No. 7 Bulls to a win. When he left the mat, however, Asper was a little more tired than usual. "I could definitely tell I was breathing heavier than I should have been for the first period.

KEEP LOW," Tony urged. "You've got to keep low." Tony Fulton hunched over and bent his torso forward until it was almost parallel with the floor. We were in a locker room at City College sometime during the 1966-1967 wrestling season. Fulton was a strapping 180-pounder. I was a skinny 129-pound geekling trying to master the wrestling learning curve. It was a curve that I never quite got around. But it was Fulton, without any encouragement from coaches or other teammates, who decided to try and help this kid navigate his way through his first year of the toughest sport there is. Before we joined City College's junior varsity wrestling team, I didn't know Tony Fulton from Tony the Tiger.