Youth Soccer

While Italy and Brazil kicked their way to the World Cup final in the Rose Bowl, two Glenelg High School graduates have been chasing a soccer dream of their own.Russell Payne and Dan Gartner, whose GHS soccer team won the Maryland State Championship in 1993, are on their way to the semifinals of the Snickers United States Youth National Championship as members of the Baltimore Spirit under-19 team in Blain, Minn., near Minneapolis.The team will play Southern California Salsa in a semifinal match.

While most soccer enthusiasts are focusing on the 15th World Cup this Fourth of July weekend, the Columbia Darby -- an under-16 boys soccer team -- will be eyeing a U.S. Youth Soccer Association Eastern Regional Championship and a berth in next month's national tournament.Columbia (22-2), which advanced to the national qualifier by defeating Olney of Montgomery County, 3-0, in last month's Maryland State Cup title game, will take part in the four-day tournament, which begins tomorrow at three sites in New Jersey.

He took 16 advanced placement or gifted and talented courses while earning a 3.94 grade-point average.His senior year he played three sports and was All-County first team in soccer as the team he co-captained last fall won a regional title. The year before it had won the school's first state soccer title.His lacrosse team, on which he played midfield, this spring won its first county championship since 1985.Chris Schaefer of Glenelg is the Baltimore Sun's Howard County Scholar-Athlete for 1993-1994.

Baseball* Over-30 men -- The Columbia Cardinals overcame a 2-0 deficit to defeat the Bodkin Red Sox, 3-2, in their Chesapeake Men's Senior Baseball League season-opener Saturday at Meade High School.Trailing, 2-0, in the seventh, the Cardinals scored two runs to tie the game. Andy Canterna opened the inning with a walk and scored on Scott Porter's double. Porter then scored on two wild pitches to tie the game.Still knotted at 2-2 in the ninth, Tom O'Neill hit a one-out double to left center, and John Canterna was intentionally walked.

The Brooklyn Park Youth Athletic Association is accepting registrations for soccer from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays at the Sugar Shack on 10th Avenue. Children ages 5 to 15 are invited to play. Registration fees are $25 for one child or $40 for two or more.For more information, call Frank Shipley at 636-1343.*You still have time to enroll your children for swimming lessons. The YWCA of Greater Baltimore offers swimming lessons for preschoolers to advanced swimmers at the North Linthicum Recreation Pool at Overlook Park.

Adam Shavitz AtholtonClass: JuniorGPA: 3.92, SAT: 1,140Sports: Soccer, indoor track, lacrosseOther activities: Lorien Nursing Home volunteer, Student Government Association class representative, National Honor Society, Special Olympics, prom committee, youth soccer referee.Profile: He has achieved honor roll status every quarter of his high school career while taking many gifted and talented courses. He captained the soccer team to the regional finals last season. And he finds time to volunteer at a nursing home, work with Special Olympians and referee youth soccer.

Can professional outdoor soccer thrive in Maryland?The newly formed Baltimore Bays will find out beginning in May, when they kick off their outdoor season in the 40-team U.S. Interregional Soccer League.The Bays will play a 16-game schedule in the USISL's nine-team Atlantic Division. The team's eight home games will be played on weekend nights at UMBC Stadium.The Bays also will play an indoor schedule from November through February at the Du Burns Arena in Canton."We want soccer to survive in Baltimore on a long-term basis in a league that's realistic," said Bays vice president and general manager Ben Neil.

The Gambrills-Odenton Recreation Council Wildcats clinched home-field advantage in the first round of the county's 140-pound division with a 38-0 win last weekend over the Fort Meade Cougars.The Wildcats (8-0) will play host to the Anne Arundel Gridiron Rebels at 4 p.m. Saturday.GORC rushed for 330 yards against the Cougars, and quarterback Kevin Hayden added 60 yards in the air. Hayden, who scored on a keeper early in the first quarter, threw touchdown passes of 17 and 12 yards, both to wide receiver Jack Rexrode.

In Howard County, it's a ritual. As sure as the seasons, as spring and fall approach, hundreds of households return to the fields each weekend. Children don uniforms, shin pads and cleats. Water bottles are filled and lawn chairs are unfolded on the sidelines. Soccer season has been upon us for weeks. It's a passion -- part of the county's fabric of life.So taken with the fervor in which Howard embraced the game, Sports Illustrated in 1989 dubbed the county "the Heartland of U.S. soccer." The designation was well deserved at the time.

The county's fall rec season for youth gets under way in earnest this weekend as most local soccer programs, along with the county boys' and girls' traveling soccer leagues, begin.And, the Carroll County Football League starts its 1991 schedule this weekend with a full slate of games.Last weekend, the Mountain Valley Football League, a multicounty youth football loop, which includes teams from Mount Airy, Taneytown and Gamber-Smallwood, opened up, as did the Carroll County Men's FallSoftball League.