We're wrapping up the just-completed school athletic year by taking a look at some of the most notable moments and occurrences. Next up is The Sun's Stefen Lovelace:

On my first real year on the job, I’d have to say it’s difficult to pin down which is the most memorable event I’ve seen. Winters Mill’s run to the Class 2A boys basketball state championship, upsetting perennial powers Gwynn Park and Randallstown in the process, comes to mind. Seeing an injured Steele Stanwick hoist the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference SFX trophy in lacrosse, after upsetting the undefeated and No. 1-ranked team in the country in Gilman is another.

But what trumps them all is Dunbar’s memorable run in football for their second straight 1A title. Seeing Tavon Austin dance on the field is one of the great pleasures of this job. Seeing the way the Poets’ players responded to coach Lawrence Smith is heart-warming. And most importantly, seeing those kids recover from a catastrophic loss of former coach Ben Eaton, and respond the way they did all season long was exciting, inspiring and emotional all at the same time. This might’ve been only my first year, but I doubt I’ll see a story quite like that one in a long time.

Posted by Milton Kent at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

From Oregon, here's a story that has something of a local tie.

It seems that a 6-foot-1 12-year-old has been banned from playing basketball at a private basketball facility in Beaverton, Ore., and the kid's coach thinks it's because the kid is too good to play with the rest of the team.

Did we mention that the 12-year-old, Jaime Nared, is a girl and the league is an all-boys league? Jaime's coach, Michael Abraham, thinks she is being punished for her parents' decision to have her play with children her own age, whom her skills are apparently superior to, rather than with older girls.

By the way, here's the local tie: Jaime Nared's father, Greg, is a former University of Maryland point guard, and her older sister, Jackie, recently signed a letter of intent to play basketball at College Park this fall.

Posted by Milton Kent at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

As the curtain drops on another school athletic year, we'll be featuring some of the memories of our scholastic sports reporters about what they saw and observed in this space.

First up: The Sun's Glenn Graham:

The 2007-08 school year brought many memorable moments and standout efforts, from the amazing skills of McDonogh soccer standout Chris Agorsor to Hereford wrestler Josh Asper's successful quest for a fourth straight title to the dogged determination and baffling changeup of Chesapeake-AA junior pitcher Lauren Gibson displayed in registering a second straight no-hitter in the Class 4A softball championship.

The one game that stood out the most, however, was the Class 2A boys soccer championship game between River Hill and Loch Raven. It had pretty goals, spectacular saves, a prideful comeback, overtime drama, and both emotional cheers and tears in the end. River Hill took an early advantage with two first-half goals before Loch Raven, with the help of an incredible individual effort from senior Steve Ehatt, rallied to send the game into overtime. River Hill and its do-everything catalyst Jake Pace ended up having the final say with an emphatic header to win the game.

Posted by Milton Kent at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Normally, legends games have all the artistic appeal of watching oatmeal get cold, but when the legends are former Dunbar boys basketball players, well, then you've potentially got something really spicy.

The Dunbar Poets Nation will gather tonight at the school for a game pitting recent and not-so-recent graduates against each other in a pair of games, tipping at 6 and 7:30 p.m. In addition, at halftime of the second game, which is designated as the legends game, the 1973 team which knocked off then nationally top-ranked DeMatha will be honored.

The games, and a roast tomorrow night at Martin's West in Woodlawn, are organized to pay homage to former Dunbar coach Bob Wade, one of the architects of the Poets' basketball program, who led the team to a pair of mythical national championships. Tickets for tonight's games are $7 for adults and $3 for youth 12 and under. Tickets for the roast are $65. For additional information, call Diane Leach at 443-286-2862 or ladidi_12@verizon.net.

Posted by Milton Kent at 6:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Not to get all Chicken Little here, but if a recent New York Times story is accurate and there are agents truly flooding the ranks of high school athletics, then we really are reaching a point where some kind of intervention, probably from a federal governmental agency, is going to happen and will almost certainly be warranted.

True, as the Times piece points out, this kind of thing has been going on, more or less, since Kevin Garnett skipped college to go straight to the NBA 13 years ago, and seems to be focused on elite-level athletes, but it still threatens the integrity of high school sports, which are still perceived to be relatively pristine.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a kid showcasing his skills to try for a college scholarship, but all he or she should get from that is a varsity letter or a trophy, not cash. Don't forget that the NCAA's roots came from then President Theodore Roosevelt's warning that he would clean up college sports if the schools themselves didn't. The states have simply got to do more to police high school sports, or else they'll find the federal Department of Education, or even worse, Congress, getting involved.

Posted by Milton Kent at 6:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The deal isn't official yet, but apparently there's something in the works to pit one of Florida's top high school football teams against a Mississippi school that has the nation's longest winning streak and (surprise, surprise) television is involved.

Apopka (Fla.) is on the verge of accepting an offer to play South Panola, which has won five straight Mississippi titles, in mid-September in a game that South Panola coach Lance Pogue has said has been set up by ESPNU. Apopka coach Rick Darlington told our sister newspaper, The Orlando Sentinel, that his team might get "beat half to death, but it can't hurt us." Those are great words going into the battle, huh?

Just wondering: Does Apopka really have to leave the state of Florida to find a team that could beat them half to death? Where is the school's athletic director or the area's superintendent to tell the coach that leaving Florida to play in a television game is counter-productive to the school's educational mission? No doubt, they'll be off somewhere cashing ESPN's check and counting the money.

Posted by Milton Kent at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Which is more important in assessing the wear and tear on a pitcher: the number of innings pitched or the number of pitches thrown?

That's the issue at the heart of the forfeiture that cost South Hagerstown a chance at the Class 2A state baseball title last weekend. The Rebels had beaten Marriotts Ridge in a state semifinal game last Wednesday, but were forced to vacate that win because one of their pitchers, Brandon Knight, worked 15 innings over a seven-day period, one inning more than is permitted under National Federation of High School Associations rules, which also prohibit a pitcher from throwing more than 10 innings in three days.

The South Hagerstown administration told The Sun that the coaching staff lost track of Knight's innings in the midst of all the rainouts in recent weeks, and while it is a rule violation, it's an understandable one. The thing to wonder, however, is whether the number of innings that a pitcher works is as important as his pitch count.

Under NFHSA rules, a pitcher who comes in to throw one pitch in an inning to get one batter out is treated the same as one who throws 40 pitches in an inning, namely, they both technically have worked an inning. Sorry, but from this perspective, that makes no sense. The objective of the rule is clearly to keep kids from wearing their arms out too soon, and while that's an admirable goal, it's probably better accomplished by requiring coaches to keep pitch counts and applying limits to the 10- and 14-day thresholds.

Posted by Milton Kent at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Megan Finn is alive and doing well.

The former Overlea field hockey player who collapsed on the practice field September 25, 2004 and was saved when her coach, Jenna Zava, performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on her, is 19 years old, lives in Virginia Beach, Va, with her husband of six months, Hunter McColgan, and is living her life to the fullest, or at least as much as her hypertrophic cardiomyopathy will allow.

"I have a lot more energy,' said Megan McColgan the other day. "I've been doing really good. I'm happy with where I am right now.'

Telling and re-telling Megan's story has been one of the great joys of doing my column because her tale is so life-affirming. One can only imagine the horror that she and her family lived in the hours after her attack. That she has fought back so hard not only to have a life, but a happy one, is a tremendous testament to the indomitability of the human heart, literally and figuratively.

I had a chance to catch up with Megan earlier this week in conjunction with the column that appears in today's sports section about tomorrow's screening conducted by the Heart Hype campaign of the Johns Hopkins University. The screening, to be held at the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association's state track and field championships at Morgan State, may help medical volunteers detect the presence of HCM, a thickening of the heart muscle that in some cases restricts the flow of blood out from the heart.

HCM is, according to medical professionals, the leading cause of sudden death among people aged 30 and younger, and often goes undetected during a regular physical examination. An electrocardiogram or EKG, which measures the electrical impulses of the heart over time, can provide signs of the presence of HCM, but the exam can cost up to $1,000 per test. Tomorrow's tests are free, and do not require pre-registration. However, students under 18 who plan to take the EKG must have either parental permission or the parent present at Morgan tomorrow to give permission. You can get a permission form online at the MPSSAA's Web site.

Megan McColgan, whose HCM wasn't detected until after her attack, spent four weeks in the hospital four years ago. She has spent a good chunk of those four years since visiting doctors at the University of Maryland Hospital Center here in Baltimore, seeing them once a month until this March, when the frequency of visits was changed to once every three months, because of the progress she's made.

She's taking a fairly high dose of a beta blocker twice a day as well as aspirin, and there are limits to what she can do in terms of exertion. But the dosage of the beta blocker has been reduced in recent months, reducing the incidents in which Megan would feel dizzy upon standing up or out of breath.

Megan, who goes for walks and takes Pilates classes, hopes that when she sees her cardiologist next month, he'll clear her to resume taking ballet classes. In addition, she's hoping to get the green light to consider having a baby.

In an interesting twist, Megan said she has taken courses on how to administer the EKG, and she'll take a test in July to receive a license to give the EKG. During her classes, her teacher used her as a guinea pig of sorts, to show her classmates what an abnormal EKG looks like. She said she spoke to the class often about her experiences, and you get the feeling that, with the twists and turns her life has taken, no one will be more proficient, or at least more empathetic in administering an EKG than Megan McColgan.

'I loved it,' Megan said. 'I learned a lot about myself from taking that class and I can't wait until I get into some scrubs and run an EKG machine and help out other people with it.'

Posted by Milton Kent at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Three area high school golfers have received scholarships from the George E. Sonnefeld Foundation to go toward their college education.

This year's recipients are Carver's Gabriella Biondo, Chapelgate Christian Academy's Michael Lovaas and Severna Park's Eric Robinson. Biondo will attend Yale next year, Lovaas will go to Maryland and Robinson will attend William and Mary. Each of the three will receive $2,000 from the foundation, which is named for the former president of the Towson Junior Jaycees, a golf enthusiast.

Current juniors who are interested in applying for the scholarship, which is awarded to Baltimore-area seniors who love golf, should contact Susan DiLonardo at either 410-446-0852 or at DiLonardo2@aol.com.

Posted by Milton Kent at 8:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

OK, it's nearly the end of the spring sports season, well past the time when basketballs have been locked away in school storage closets. Still, there's never a bad time for big hoops news, and this qualifies.

Oakland Mills guard Miriam McKenzie has been named one of the nation's top 30 girls high school players by MaxPreps. McKenzie, a 5-foot-8 senior, averaged 28 points and 13.6 rebounds a game for the Scorpions, and was named The Sun's Player of the Year.

McKenzie, who will play at Loyola in the fall, notched four triple-doubles and 21 double-doubles during the season, and became Oakland Mills' all-time leading scorer, narrowly falling short of becoming Howard County's all-time leading scorer.

Posted by Milton Kent at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Earlier in the week, we told you about Ryan McGeeney, the Utah photographer who took a javelin in the leg while attempting to shoot the state track and field championships last weekend. We've been informed by Randy Wright, the executive editor of the paper that employs McGeeney, that the Standard-Examiner is published in Ogden, not Provo, as I wrote. My apologies to all concerned.

Posted by Milton Kent at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Getting enough high school baseball, especially of the championship variety? Well, the state of Florida is giving players and coaches there much more, by expanding the baseball playoff format.

The Florida High School Athletic Association, that state's equivalent of the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association, has opened the regional final format from a single game to a best-of-three miniseries, with the winners advancing to the state semifinals. So far, the new format has proven to be a winner, with nine of the 24 series going to a third game and six of them won by the team that lost the first game of the series.

Of course, the natural question here is to wonder whether such an animal could survive here. The obvious answer is no, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that high school baseball here is nowhere near as popular as it is in Florida, so there's isn't that level of demand. Plus, the weather, as we've seen in the last two weeks, is unpredictable enough in Maryland to make it difficult to get three straight days where play is possible, and if there are enough rainouts, the traditional Memorial Day weekend finale would go out the window.

Still, the regions in Maryland are contiguous enough to make the idea intriguing, if not, entirely workable.

Posted by Milton Kent at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Congrats are in order to Loyola for winning the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference title last night at Johnny Unitas Stadium, with cheers going out also to the Hereford boys for capturing the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association Class 3A-2A flag, as well as to Glenelg for grabbing the girls and boys 2A-1A titles at UMBC Stadium.

Today's lacrosse championship games include a pair of girls matches, with Towson meeting No. 11 Winters Mill in the 3A-2A final at 4 p.m., and No. 2 Severna Park attempting to clinch a second straight unbeaten championship season in its 4A-3A game against No. 15 Catonsville at 6 p.m. The lone boys game of the day will pit No. 7 Dulaney against Urbana for the 4A-3A title.

If you can't make it out to Catonsville, be advised that the girls and boys 4A-3A games will air live on CN8.

Posted by Milton Kent at 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Because lacrosse players appear to be made of hardier stock than baseball and softball players, the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association 's state lacrosse finals are on as scheduled for today and tomorrow at UMBC Stadium, with tripleheaders on tap, assuming that lightning doesn't enter the picture.

Today's trio of games will find No.15 Glenelg meeting Loch Raven in the girls Class 2A/1A title match at 4 p.m., with Glenelg's sixth-ranked and unbeaten boys meeting Southern of Anne Arundel in the 2A/1A championship game at 6 p.m. Finally, No. 15 Hereford will take on Walkersville at 8 p.m., for the boys 3A/2A state title.

Tomorrow, No. 13 Winters Mill will meet Towson in the girls 3A/2A match at 4 p.m., followed by the girls 4A/3A title game between second-ranked and undefeated Severna Park and Catonsville, a game that will be televised live on Comcast's CN8 channel. The championship games will conclude with the 4A/3A boys game between Urbana and No. 8 Dulaney.

Posted by Milton Kent at 1:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Administration has called all eight state softball semifinals scheduled for today at Bachman Park in Glen Burnie, with the games to be played tomorrow at the same times at the same fields, weather permitting.

The rundown for tomorrow goes as follows:

The Class 4A semifinals will be played at 7 p.m., with Chesapeake facing Linganore on Field 3, while Eleanor Roosevelt will meet Sherwood on Field 1.

The 3A competition, is also scheduled for 7 p.m., with Damascus facing Northern of Calvert County on Field 4, and Franklin taking on Atholton on Field 6.

In the 2A semifinals, both at 4 p.m., Eastern Tech will take on Easton on Field 3, while Century will meet McDonough of Charles County on Field 1.

The 1A games, also played at 4 p.m., will pit Western Tech against Colonel Richardson on Field 6, with Bohemia Manor taking on Fort Hill on Field 4.

All eight semifinal winners will advance to Saturday's championship games at the University of Maryland softball stadium in College Park.

Posted by Milton Kent at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Upon further review, the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Administration has postponed all eight baseball state semifinals games scheduled for today because of the rain.

As a result, today's schedule has been shifted to tomorrow, weather permitting. St. Michaels will meet Sparrows Point at 4 p.m., and Clear Spring will take on Harford Tech in the Class 1A semifinals at 7 p.m., at McCurdy Field in Frederick. Arundel High will host the 2A semifinals, pitting Kent Island against Loch Raven at 4 p.m., with Marriotts Ridge facing South Hagerstown in the 7 p.m. game.

Centennial and Patapsco will meet in one 3A semifinal at Joe Cannon Stadium in Harmans at 4 p.m., with the winner getting the winner of the 7 p.m. game between La Plata and Seneca Valley. Finally, the 4A semifinals, held at the University of Maryland's Shipley Field, will find Sherwood taking on Eleanor Roosevelt at 4 p.m., with C. Milton Wright facing South River in the other game at 7 p.m.

Posted by Milton Kent at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Administration has announced that today's Class 2A baseball state semifinals at Arundel High have been postponed until tomorrow because of inclement weather.

The 4 p.m. game pitting Loch Raven against the winner of yesterday's Kent Island-Easton regional final as well as the 7 p.m. game between South Hagerstown and Marriotts Ridge will be held at the same times tomorrow, weather permitting.

Posted by Milton Kent at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

We told you last month about a new NCAA rule designed to restrict the amount of contact NCAA coaches can have with potential recruits during the spring. Well, should anyone be surprised that coaches have already come up with ways to skirt the new law?

The Chicago Tribune reports that instead of evaluating recruits in the spring period, Illinois football coach Ron Zook is, instead, conducting coaching clinics -- six of them, in fact. While Zook may not be seeing the kids directly during say, seven-on-seven drills, he gets the next best thing: access to coaches, who, in turn, can pass along information between a recruitable athlete and Zook.

Even oilier is the way Alabama coach Nick Saban is getting around the rule. Saban, who was the intended target of the rule change, is using a Web cam from his office to contact a few kids a day. The next thing you know, Saban and Zook and other coaches will get jobs at fast food restaurants in their prized recruits' hometowns to slip them a Big Mac and a scholarship offer.

Posted by Milton Kent at 7:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

There's not a reporter or photographer alive who doesn't have a tale to tell about the hits or near misses attendant with covering high school sports, whether it be getting flattened by football players heading for the sideline, or perhaps being plunked on the noggin by a stray baseball or softball or having a basketball player fly into you attempting to save a loose ball. It all comes with the territory.

But Ryan McGeeney, a photographer with the Standard-Examiner newspaper of Provo, Utah, may have taken the concept of going to all lengths to get the picture to a ridiculous and dangerous extreme. This weekend McGeeney's right leg was pierced below the knee by a flying javelin during the state track and field championships.

McGeeney, who served seven years in the Marines, including a six-month deployment in Afghanistan, was apparently so intent on getting shots of the girls discus competition at one end of the stadium that he didn't notice a javelin flying in his direction from another end. McGeeney, who, according to officials was standing where he wasn't supposed to be (well, duh), was not seriously hurt and returned later in the day to finish shooting.

The even better news is that the athlete who launched the javelin won the title, though his total distance does not include the distance the javelin traveled to the hospital while it was lodged in McGeeney's leg.

Posted by Milton Kent at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune comes word of a school district that thought outside the box in order to keep sports programs and teams in business.

The good people of the Brainerd area voted down a referendum last year that would have raised property taxes to support schools, so education officials decided to cut 17 of 29 varsity sports and all middle school athletic activities. That triggered a community effort to raise money to save those activities.

The fundraising drive collected $330,000, which combined with a hefty hike in activity fees, will keep sports alive on the level at which people had been accustomed. Now, 22 percent of sports and activities funding will come from the school district, rather than the 78 percent figure that had been in effect previously.

Of course, collecting money in that fashion, even through a non-profit entity, does raise questions about how sports programs will be funded, and, more importantly, who will make the decision. Will the field hockey program receive the same degree of support as the football team? Will the boys and girls basketball teams get the same dollars? How about the softball and baseball teams, or the girls and boys track squads? And to what extent would the public want corporate involvement, and at what level and price?

Posted by Milton Kent at 6:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)