After a wild season-ending weekend that unexpectedly ended some seasons and extended others, the playoffs are set to begin next week. Here's a look at a few numbers that stand out from this weekend's action and the playoff fields:

1
Outright Howard County championship for Atholton, which won this fall after sharing the title in 1976 and 1988

1
Team in the regional playoffs with a losing record – Havre de Grace at 4-6 in Class 1A East

1
Yard sneak by Archbishop Spalding quarterback Brian Louck to beat Loyola, 20-16 in overtime, and propel the Cavaliers into the playoffs in their first year in the MIAA A Conference

2
MIAA B Conference playoff berths decided on the last night of the regular season – Boys’ Latin with a win over St. Paul’s and John Carroll with a win over Archbishop Curley

2
Touchdowns for Poly in the final 2:23 of the 22-16 win over City

2
Undefeated teams in the Class 4A North region -- Poly and Catonsville

3
Defending state champions to miss out on this year’s playoffs – Urbana, McDonough and Wilde Lake – with only Dunbar left with a chance to repeat

3
Way tie for the UCBAC Chesapeake Division championship – Aberdeen, Fallston and North Harford

3
Fourth-quarter touchdowns for St. Mary’s in a 26-20 comeback win over Severn

3
Straight wins for Gilman over McDonogh

4
Straight wins for Poly over City

4
Baltimore area teams finishing the regular season undefeated – Old Mill, Poly, Catonsville and Overlea

4
Teams with one loss each in the Class 2A East regional playoffs – Fallston, Patterson Mill, Kent Island and Wicomico

4
Hammond turnovers – three leading to touchdowns – in Howard’s 39-6 win to clinch a playoff berth

7
Straight shutouts for Northwestern, which allowed its first points of the season this week and fell one shutout shy of the state record

8
Years since Chesapeake-AA posted a non-losing season until finishing 5-5 with a 25-0 win over North County

8
Teams remaining undefeated heading into the state playoffs – Old Mill, Poly, Catonsville, Overlea, Quince Orchard, Eleanor Roosevelt, Fort Hill and Perryville

Continue reading "Football: By The Numbers for Week 10" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 3:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The high school football regular season is over and it's on to the playoffs next weekend. Following is a look at how The Baltimore Sun's ranked teams fared this week and whom they play in the first round of the playoffs.

Look for the new rankings in Tuesday's paper.

Ranking/Team/Record/Latest result/Next opponent/
1. Gilman/8-1/Def. McDonogh 31-21/Vs. Archbishop Spalding, Fri
2. Calvert Hall/8-1/Def. Mount St. Joseph 26-7/Vs. McDonogh, Fri.
3. Old Mill/10-0/Def. South River 54-20/Vs. South River, Fri.
4. Atholton/9-1/Def. Centennial 48-0/Vs. Stephen Decatur, Fri.
5. Poly/10-0/Def. City 22-16/Vs. Perry Hall, Fri.
6. Arundel/9-1/Def. Southern 58-13/Vs. North Point, Fri.
7. Dunbar/8-2/Def. Patterson 32-0/Vs. Southside at Poly, Fri.
8. McDonogh/6-4/Lost to Gilman 31-21/At Calvert Hall, Fri.
9. Archbishop Spalding/7-3/Def. Loyola 20-14 OT/At Gilman Fri.
10. Catonsville/10-0/Def. Parkville 28-16/Vs. Paint Branch, Fri.
11. Perry Hall/8-2/Lost to Hereford 34-31 OT/At Poly, Fri.
12. Westminster/8-2/Def. South Carroll 39-6/Season over.
13. Fallston/9-1/Lost to Aberdeen 21-14/At Wicomico, Fri.
14. River Hill/8-2/Def. Mount Hebron 42-0/Vs. Howard Fri.
15. Archbishop Curley/7-3/Lost to John Carroll 23-12/Vs. Boys’ Latin

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The regional football playoffs kick off next weekend, and MPSSAA officials announced the schedule this morning. Here are the matchups involving Baltimore-area teams:

Class 4A North
4 Perry Hall at 1 Poly, Friday, 7
3 Paint Branch at 2 Catonsville, Friday, 7

Class 4A East
4 South River at 1 Old Mill, Friday, 7
3 North Point at 2 Arundel, Friday, 7

Class 3A North
4 Digital Harbor at 1 North Harford, Friday, 7
3 Franklin at 2 Aberdeen, Friday, 7

Class 3A East
4 Stephen Decatur at 1 Atholton, Friday, 7
3 Howard at 2 River Hill, Friday, 7

Class 2A North
4 Dundalk vs. 1 Edmondson at Poly, Saturday, 6
3 Lake Clifton at 2 Chesapeake-B at CCBC-Essex, Friday, 7

Class 2A South
3 Gwynn Park at 2 Glenelg, Friday, 7

Class 2A East
4 Patterson Mill at 1 Kent Island, Friday, 7
3 Fallston vs. 2 Wicomico at Wicomico County Stadium, Friday, 7

Class 2A West
3 South Carroll at 2 Walkersville, Friday, 7

Class 1A North
4 Lewis at 1 Overlea, Friday, 7
3 Northwestern vs. 2 New Town at site TBA, Friday, 7

Class 1A South
4 Southside vs. 1 Dunbar at Poly, Saturday, noon
3 Surrattsville vs. 2 Du Bois at Poly, Saturday, 3

Class 1A East
4 Havre de Grace at 1 Perryville, Friday, 7

To see the regional matchups for the rest of the state as well as the final points standings, go to the MPSSAA website.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Westminster's Dan Johnson runs for one of the four touchdowns he scored in a 39-6 win at South Carroll Friday night. (Patrick Smith/Special to The Baltimore Sun)

Aberdeen 21, Fallston 14

Annapolis Area Christian 40, Pallotti 0

Arundel 58, Southern-AA 13

Atholton 48, Centennial 0

Bel Air 21, C. Milton Wright 14

Bethesda 28, Walter Johnson 14

Bishop Ireton, Va. 48, St. Mary's Ryken 0

Bishop Walsh 57, Randolph-Macon, Va. 47

Boonsboro 34, Smithsburg 13

Boys' Latin 6, St. Paul's 0

Broadneck 31, Meade 24

Brunswick 50, Catoctin 22

Bullis 42, Episcopal, Va. 7

Calvert Hall 26, Mount St. Joseph 7

Cambridge/SD 52, Easton 0

Carver 14, Southwestern 8

Century 26, Liberty 20

Chesapeake-AA 25, North County 0

Continue reading "Statewide high school football scores from Friday" »

Posted by David Selig at 9:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Northwestern’s football team has been quietly rolling over its competition in Baltimore City’s Division II this fall. Not only have the Wildcats won seven straight games – they haven’t given up a single point all season.

With one more shutout, they would tie the state record of eight consecutive shutouts set by Henry A. Wise, from Prince George's County, in 2009.

“I’ve been coaching going on 17 years at various schools,” said Wildcats coach Eric Woodson, “and this is a first at any level. I’ve won some titles, I’ve played on the college level and I have never seen this before. This is uncharted waters, but I take my hat off to my coaching staff and our preparation – and foremost to my players because without them, we wouldn’t be where we are now.”

Continue reading "Northwestern football aiming to tie state shutout record" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 7:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Fallston football coach Dave Cesky was named Ravens High School Coach of the Week Wednesday after leading the Cougars to a 35-20 win over Harford County rival North Harford last week that gave them sole possession of first place in the UCBAC Chesapeake Division.

Cesky, in his 35th season coaching the Cougars, has guided them to a 9-0 record this fall and the No. 13 ranking in The Baltimore Sun.

"Our major goal is to try and go undefeated," Cesky said in a news release. "We want to have the best record Fallston as ever seen and have a home playoff game. We played twice on the road last year in the playoffs and it was tough. A home playoff game is one of the most exciting things that the school community can have."

The Cougars currently rank second in the Class 2A East regional behind Kent Island, which is also undefeated.

Continue reading "Fallston's Cesky named Ravens Coach of the Week" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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After 40 years of coaching high school football in Baltimore City, Poly coach Roger Wrenn will hang up his whistle at the end of this season.

First, he'll guide the Engineers into the 123rd Poly-City game Saturday at noon at M&T Bank Stadium. After that, his career will extend as long as the 9-0 Engineers can continue in the Class 4A playoffs. They aim to make it to Dec. 2, so they can present Wrenn with the ultimate retirement gift – his first state title.

Wrenn’s career started here as an assistant coach at City in 1972. He took over at Patterson in 1974 and moved to Poly in 2006. The Engineers have already clinched the Baltimore City Division I title – the 14th city championship of Wrenn’s career. His career record is 183-113-2.

Although Wrenn’s many proteges coaching in the area insisted the he would never retire, Wrenn decided that it was time to do new things. He and his wife Donna Bowers, a former Patterson athletic director, plan to travel and visit family.

As this week’s football Coachspeak guest, Wrenn discussed the Poly-City game, his undefeated Poly team and his retirement.

What does the Poly-City game mean to you?

I was at Poly a couple years before I kind of reflected a little bit. It’s been the neatest thing about coaching there. The last year I played in college was 1969 and that was the 100th anniversary of the Princeton-Rutgers game, the first college football game. I know that because we all wore 100s on our helmets, everybody who played college football when I was playing at lowly Division III Frostburg. It wasn’t until I had been at Poly for a while and I thought, the 100th anniversary of the first college football game was in 1869 and by 1889, these two high schools were playing each other. That was just 20 years later. That had to be really at the advent of football in America, much less high school football in America. When you think of these long college rivalries, Poly’s played City longer than Arrny’s played Navy, longer than Michigan’s played Ohio State. It’s really an amazing rivalry. I was invited to a luncheon with the players who had played on 1944 team and they were obviously elderly gentlemen, but they were just as interested in what we do now. They would say, “Some of the spin stuff you do looked just like what we used to do with the single wing.” I thought the more things change, the more they’re the same. One guy said, “My brother played and they hadn’t beaten City in a while. Poly had lost three times in a row. Then we beat them and I wrote him a letter. I knew he got it and read it and had a smile on his face, because they found the letter on his body when he was killed in the Battle of the Bulge.” I was so moved when he talked about that. Isn’t that a great story? It was interesting that those elderly gentlemen were still just as interested in high school football and telling me all about their experiences and what it was like and how much they loved it. I always tell our players, “You’re just one in a very long line of guys who have worn those beautiful orange and Navy blue uniforms and represented Poly.”

Continue reading "Coachspeak: Poly football's Roger Wrenn" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 3:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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McDonogh's Taysean Scott out-ran Calvert Hall's Will Johnson for a touchdown in the first half of Sunday's game, but the Eagles dropped a spot in the state poll after the Cardinals prevailed 48-42 in triple overtime. (Steve Ruark/Patuxent Publishing)

Only one the 10 Baltimore area football teams in this week's ESPN High School Maryland football media poll dropped, while several others crept up a spot or three.

McDonogh dropped from 18th to No. 19 after its 48-42 triple-overtime loss to Calvert Hall. The Cardinals stayed put at No. 4 behind No. 1 Good Counsel, No. 2 Gilman and No. 3 Quince Orchard.

No. 7 Old Mill, No. 15 Dunbar, and No. 16 Arundel stayed put while No. 8 Atholton, No. 10 Poly and No. 13 Catonsville each jumped one spot. Archbishop Spalding moved from 25th to No. 22.

To see where everyone else falls this week and which three local teams also received votes for the Top 25, check out the full state football poll.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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After nine weeks of high school football action, competition is fierce for those last few contested playoff berths and for high seedings. Here are some of the numbers that stand out this week:

1
Week left in the regular season

1
Extra point kicked in overtime by River Hill’s Davis Grove to make the difference in a 21-20 win over Glenelg

1
9-1 team that could miss the playoffs in Class 4A North, a region that could have two 10-0 teams and three 9-1 teams for only four playoff berths

2
Teams left undefeated in the Carroll County league – Westminster and South Carroll who meet on Friday night

3
Overtimes for Calvert Hall to beat McDonogh 48-42

3
Touchdowns by Fallston’s Ryan Umpleby – two receptions, one interception return – to open their 35-20 win over North Harford

3
Rushing touchdowns by Perry Hall’s Eric Latham in a 24-14 win over Franklin

3
Third-quarter touchdowns for Meade in less than seven minutes in a 46-19 win over Severna Park

Continue reading "Football: By The Numbers for Week 9" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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A few upsets at the bottom of the poll and a nailbiter of a triple overtime game highlighted this week's football action in The Baltimore Sun's Top 15. Following is a look at how the ranked teams fared this week and who they play on the final weekend of the regular season.

Look for the new rankings in Tuesday's paper.

Ranking/Team/Record/Latest result/Next opponent/
1. Gilman/7-1/Def. Mount St. Joseph 58-28/at McDonogh, Sat.
2. Calvert Hall/7-1/Def. McDonogh 48-42 3OT/Vs. Mount St. Joseph, Fri.
3. Old Mill/9-0 /Def Glen Burnie, 21-0/Vs. South River, Fri.
4. Atholton/8-1/Def. Mount Hebron 38-0/At Centennial, Fri.
5. Poly/9-0/Def. Mervo 34-20./Vs. City at M&T Bank Stadium, Sat.
6. Arundel/8-1/Def. Chesapeake-AA, 40-7/Vs. Southern, Fri
7. Dunbar/7-2/Def. Carver 22-12/Vs. Patterson at Poly, Sat.
8. McDonogh/6-3/Lost to Calvert Hall 48-42 3OT/Vs. Gilman, Sat.
9. Archbishop Spalding/6-3/Def. Leonardtown 62-33/Vs. Loyola, Fri.
10. Catonsville/9-0/Def.Kenwood, 48-0/At Parkville, Sat.
11. Loyola/4-4/Lost to Georgetown Prep 20-16/At Spalding, Fri.
12. Westminster/8-1/Def. Manchester Valley 57-7/At South Carroll, Fri
13. Perry Hall/8-1/Def. Franklin 24-14/At Hereford, Fri.
14. Glenelg/7-2/Lost to River Hill 21-20 OT/Marriotts Ridge, Fri.
15. North Harford/7-2/Lost to Fallston 35-20/At Joppatowne, Fri.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 7:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The Calvert Hall-McDonogh and Loyola-Georgetown Prep football games scheduled for
this afternoon have been postponed until Sunday, because of the snowy weather.

No. 2 Calvert Hall will play at No. 8 McDonogh at 1 p.m. while Georgetown Prep will play at No. 11 Loyola at 3 p.m.

In some areas of Baltimore County, a light coating of snow covered the grassy areas by early in the morning today with more snow expected.

"I'm up in Carroll County and it wasn't good when I left my house," Loyola coach Brian Abbott said. "If we have snow covering the lines, we can't play. It's not like he NFL where you can bring the sweepers out there."

The Dons and McDonogh have grass fields, but with precipitation scheduled to end later Saturday, both coaches expect no problems Sunday.

Continue reading "Calvert Hall-McDonogh, Loyola-Prep football games postponed" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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With the postseason just two weeks away, Fallston football coach Dave Cesky has his Cougars 8-0 and contending for UCBAC and regional championships.

In his 35th season coaching the Cougars, Cesky carries on perhaps the most storied high school football legacy in Harford County. A Bel Air graduate, he followed his father Al Cesky into the coaching profession. Al Cesky coached Bel Air's football team from 1950-1965, finishing his career 90-33 with four unbeaten teams.

Dave Cesky, 58, has coached football in Harford County for 37 years and has been Fallston's athletic director for 26 years. He played football at Bel Air and at Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College) in Westminster.

The Cougars, who made it to the regional final last season, are aiming for their third playoff appearance in four years. Despite their perfect record, they stand in second place in the Class 2A East region behind Kent Island, which is also unbeaten but has an edge in bonus points.

Friday's 7 p.m. game at North Harford could determine the winner of the UCBAC Chesapeake Division, because the defending champion Hawks also are unbeaten in the division. A win over North Harford or Aberdeen, which is 3-1 and the Cougars' opponent for the regular-season finale, could assure Fallston a regional playoff berth

As this week's football Coachspeak guest, Cesky answers five questions about this season, the playoffs and following in his father's footsteps.

Continue reading "Coachspeak: Fallston football's Dave Cesky" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
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David Brookhart and Glenelg beat Howard this week and remain atop the standings in Class 2A South. (Noah Scialom/Patuxent Publishing)

All eight Baltimore-area football teams held onto their top spots this week in the MPSSAA regional playoff standings with just two more weeks to play in the regular season.

Poly's win over Dunbar kept the Engineers in first in one of the area's tightest races. The Engineers hold the lead over Catonsville by one tenth of a point in Class 4A North. Both teams are 8-0 in a region in which a team with just one loss could miss out on the playoffs. Paint Branch, currently third; Perry Hall, fourth; and Westminster, fifth are all 7-1. Westminster is in the toughest spot, because it likely doesn't play enough Class 4A schools to match the others in win points.

In Class 2A East, undefeated Fallston trails Kent Island by one point. The Cougars could make up some ground if they win their last two games against North Harford and Aberdeen -- both Class 3A schools with good records that would improve the Cougars' bonus points.

Here are the local teams currently leading their regions:
Poly in Class 4A North
Old Mill in Class 4A East
North Harford in Class 3A North
Atholton in Class 3A East
Edmondson in Class 2A North
Glenelg in Class 2A South
Overlea in Class 1A North
Dunbar in Class 1A South

Continue reading "Eight locals stay on top in regional football standings" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Severn first-year football coach Chris Kirchenheiter was named the Ravens High School Coach of the Week Tuesday after leading the Admirals to a 42-7 victory over Friends that ensured the program its first winning season in five years.

Kirchenheiter, a former Severna Park assistant coach, has the Admirals off to a 6-1 start -- a considerable improvement over last year's 0-10 finish.

"We came in and had 11 seniors and they said, 'We want to change. We want to do something different,'" Kirchenheiter said in a news release. "So we put it on the 11 seniors to take charge. As a coaching staff, we put things in place to help them, but it was up to the 11 seniors to make it happen and that's exactly what they've done."

Continue reading "Severn's Kirchenheiter named Ravens Coach of the Week" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Dunbar's Kevin Estep grabs a hold of Poly's quarterback Darrell Milburn during Friday night's game. Estep might have taken him down on that play, but Milburn and the Engineers got an 18-14 win that helped them jump in this week's state poll. (Gene Sweeney Jr./Baltimore Sun)

Not much changed in this week's ESPN High School Maryland football media poll, but one Baltimore-area game forced a shuffle involving three local teams.

Poly's 18-14 win over Dunbar boosted the Engineers a spot to No. 11 while the Poets dropped to No. 15. Dunbar's fall helped lift Catonsville to No. 14.

Atholton also improved a spot, jumping over DeMatha to No. 9 while No. 2 Gilman, No. 4 Calvert Hall, No. 7 Old Mill, No. 16 Arundel, No. 18 McDonogh and No. 25 Archbishop Spalding held their positions.

To see where everyone else falls this week, check out the full state football poll.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Archbishop Curley's football team will play its first game under the lights Friday night when it hosts St. Paul's in a critical MIAA B Conference game at 7 p.m.

After watching Calvert Hall, St. Paul's and John Carroll have success under temporary lights, Curley coach Sean Murphy met with his administration two weeks ago and they decided to give it a try. With their only remaining regular season home game Friday coinciding with a chance to clinch the top-seeded spot in the B Conference, the timing was perfect for a night game.

"This makes it a big deal for the kids, just the atmosphere of Friday night football," Murphy said. "It's usually a bigger crowd and, for the kids, playing under the lights is something special. It brings out more of the student body, more school spirit. Also, it allows the parents more time. They're not rushing home from work to get to a 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock football game on Friday."

Continue reading "Curley unveils lights for Friday night football" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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There weren't many surprises in the eighth week of the regular season of high school football, but here are some of the numbers that stood out from the weekend's action:

0
Punts by Loyola in its 34-14 win over Mount St. Joseph

1
Blocked extra point by Long Reach's Allen Cross to make the difference in a 33-32 win over Hammond

2
Teams still undefeated in the county in Carroll (Westminster, South Carroll) and Harford (Fallston, North Harford)

3
Losses this week for Top 15 teams -- two (Archbishop Spalding, Mount St. Joseph) to teams ranked higher and one (Dunbar) to a team ranked just one spot below

4
Big plays by John Carroll's Walter Roche -- three interceptions and a blocked punt -- in a 24-7 win over Northwood

5
Teams in the Baltimore area remaining undefeated -- Old Mill, Poly, Catonsville, Fallston and Overlea

7
Straight wins for Dunbar over Poly before Friday night's 18-14 Engineers' victory

8
Yard overtime touchdown run by Winters Mill's Chase Cullison to beat North Carroll, 21-15

Continue reading "Football: By The Numbers for Week 8" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Only three football teams in The Baltimore Sun's Top 15 lost over the weekend -- and two of them were to opponents ranked ahead of them. No. 6 Dunbar fell to a lower ranked team -- No. 7 Poly. Following is a look at how all the ranked teams fared this weekend and who's up next with just two weeks left in the regular season.

Look for the new rankings in Tuesday's paper.

Ranking/Team/Record/Latest result/Next opponent/
1. Gilman/6-1/Did not play/Vs. Mount St. Joseph, Fri.
2. Calvert Hall/6-1/Def. Archbishop Spalding 29-23/At McDonogh, Sat.
3. Old Mill/8-0 /Def. Southern 42-12/Vs. Glen Burnie, Fri.
4. Atholton/7-1/Def. Wilde Lake 35-0/Mount Hebron, Sat.
5. Arundel/7-1/Def. Severna Park 21-13/At Chesapeake-AA, Fri.
6. Dunbar/6-2/Lost to Poly 18-14/At Carver, Fri.
7. Poly/8-0/Def. Dunbar 18-14/At Mervo, Fri.
8. McDonogh/6-2/Def. Georgetown Prep 28-27/Vs. Calvert Hall, Sat.
9. Archbishop Spalding/5-3/Lost to Calvert Hall 29-23/At Leonardtown, Fri.
10. Catonsville/8-0/Def. Milford Mill 48-7/At Kenwood, Fri.
11. Loyola/4-3/Def. Mount St. Joseph 34-14/Vs. Georgetown Prep, Sat.
12. Westminster/7-1/Def. Century 46-0/Manchester Valley, Fri.
13. Mount St. Joseph/3-4/Lost to Loyola 34-14/At Gilman, Fri.
14. Perry Hall/7-1/Def. Woodlawn 31-26/ Vs. Franklin, Fri.
15. Glenelg/7-1/Def. Howard 35-13/At River Hill, Fri.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 7:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Reginald F. Lewis football coach Donte' Foster was named Ravens' High School Coach of the Week Wednesday after leading his team to a 24-18 win last week over Maritime Academy.

The victory boosted the Falcons' record to 5-1, a big improvement over last season's 3-7 finish.

“The turnaround is unbelievable,” Foster said in a news release. “My staff deserves kudos because of the time and effort that they put in these young men. Even though this is called the ‘Coach of the Week’ award, it really represents the efforts made by our entire staff. I feel that I have the best staff in Baltimore City.”

Continue reading "Lewis' Foster named Ravens Coach of the Week" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 6:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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When Blake Henry took over the Mount St. Joseph football program, he said he expected the Gaels to be in the hunt for the MIAA A Conference championship every year. Nineteen months later, they are.

Friday night's 21-14 victory over then-No. 4 McDonogh boosted the Gaels into a tight race for second place behind No. 1 Gilman, which is 4-0 in the seven-team conference. The Gaels are 3-3 overall and 2-1 in the conference heading into Saturday's home game against No. 11 Loyola. This week, the Gaels broke into The Baltimore Sun's Top 15 poll at No. 13.

A 1998 Loyola graduate, Henry played football at Northwestern for a year and then transferred to Wake Forest, where he was a first-team All-ACC offensive guard as a senior. Henry, 32, had a brief stint with the Atlanta Falcons after signing a free agent contract and then returned to Loyola to join its coaching staff in 2003.

Henry, a phys ed and health teach at St. Joe, took over a Gaels program that had gone 2-8 through a disappointing, injury-riddled 2009 season. Last fall, they finished 3-6. As this week's football Coachspeak guest, he talks about the Gaels' turnaround and the challenge of competing in the A Conference.

What are the challenges you face as a new head coach when you have to rebuild a team in the A Conference?

It was an inexperienced team in that the seniors I inherited had not played a lot. Changing the offense and defense and getting them used to me as a coach and our coaching staff and our style took a little bit of time. We have a lot of good kids here and the kids are willing to work hard. Most of them accepted what we brought in and the ones that didn’t aren’t playing football here anymore. The challenge for us was to put in an off-season program. They really hadn’t done a lot with that. Getting the kids to come in four days a week in the summer at 8 a.m. was a struggle at first, but once the kids started seeing the benefit of getting stronger and being better football players, they really bought into it. We’ve had a much better response to that this year than last year. Teenagers want instant gratification, and in football you don’t get that. You prepare for five or six days for one game a week.

Continue reading "Coachspeak: Mount St. Joseph football's Blake Henry" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 6:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Jabari Weems and McDonogh fell nine spots in the state media poll after losing to Mount St. Joseph on Saturday. (Brian Krista/Patuxent Publishing)

McDonogh's 21-14 loss to Mount St. Joseph cost the Eagles nine spots in this week's ESPN High School Maryland football media poll, but most of the other local teams moved up a notch or so.

The Eagles dropped from No. 9 to No. 18. While the Gaels did not get into the poll, they received votes for the first time this season.

The area's top three teams, No. 2 Gilman, No. 4 Calvert Hall and No. 7 Old Mill, stayed put, but Atholton, Dunbar, Poly and Catonsville moved up. Arundel lost a spot and Archbishop Spalding jumped in at No. 25.

To see where your team falls this week, check out the full state football poll.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Tyjuan Eaton and Edmondson hold down the top spot in Class 2A North. (Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun)

Only one team lost its first-place status in the latest state football regional playoff standings -- undefeated Fallston. The Cougars dropped to third place in Class 3A East behind Wicomico and Kent Island, who are also undefeated and now tied for first place -- thanks to picking up more bonus points than Fallston for last week's wins.

After seven weeks, eight teams hold on to their top spots in the battle for one of four playoff berths in each region.

Here are the other teams that held on to their top spots:
Poly in Class 4A North
Old Mill in Class 4A East
North Harford in Class 3A North
Atholton in Class 3A East
Edmondson in Class 2A North
Glenelg in Class 2A South
Overlea in Class 1A North
Dunbar in Class 1A South

Of the state's 185 public schools teams, 15 remain undefeated, including Old Mill, Poly, Catonsville, Fallston and Overlea.

To see all of the regional standings and for an explanation of how the bonus points work, check out the MPSSAA web site.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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It's hard to believe that only three weeks remain in the regular season of high school football and the playoffs are nearly upon us. After seventh-week action, here are a few of the numbers that stood out:

1
Yard sneak by Reservoir’s E.J. Montgomery to beat previously undefeated Glenelg in overtime, 19-13

1
Pass completed by Atholton in its 40-21 win over Hammond

2
Seconds left when Patterson Mill quarterback Luke DePasquale hit Mike Reed with the game-winning touchdown pass in a 23-16 win over Edgewood

2
Kickoffs returned for touchdowns by Meade in its 35-21 win over Northeast

3
Of seven teams in the MIAA A Conference with just one conference loss – Calvert Hall, McDonogh and Mount St. Joseph – in a crowded second-place race behind Gilman (4-0 in the conference)

3
Fourth-quarter touchdowns thrown by Broadneck quarterback Brady George in a comeback attempt that fell short 34-31 against Arundel

4
Shutouts by Old Mill this season

5
Undefeated teams remaining in the Baltimore area – No. 3 Old Mill, No. 8 Poly, No. 12 Catonsville, Fallston and Overlea

5
Loyola fumbles in a 27-14 loss to Gilman

5
Touchdowns on its first five possessions for Aberdeen in beating Bel Air, 42-8

6
Average points allowed by Dunbar in its six games

Continue reading "Football: By The Numbers for Week 7" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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And then there were five.

One more team fell from the ranks of the unbeaten this week as Reservoir nipped Glenelg, 19-13 in overtime. That leaves five Baltimore-area high school football teams boasting perfect records with just three weeks of the regular season left.

Here’s a look at how the 7-0 teams won this week and who stands in their way next:

No. 3 Old Mill 55, Annapolis 0
Rob Chesson scored four touchdowns to bring his season total to 24 as the Patriots continue to dominate Anne Arundel County. They posted their fourth shutout and have allowed only 40 points while winning by an average of 37.4 points. On Homecoming against the Panthers, Chesson, a senior running back, rushed for 211 yards on 11 carries. Deonte Shields also threw two touchdown passes to Torie Wagner.
Next up: Southern at home Friday at 6:30 p.m. The Bulldogs are 4-3, coming off a 33-13 win over North County. Earlier this season, they beat No. 14 South River, 25-24, but Old Mill’s defense will be the toughest challenge they have faced all season.

No. 8 Poly 34, Southwestern 7
After giving up nearly three times as many points as they had all season in a 44-34 win over Patterson last week, the Engineers’ defense clamped down again this week. Rashid Tynes had nine tackles and Priestly Shuler had eight tackles and a sack. Shuler also scored two rushing touchdowns, carrying the ball six times for 104 yards. Nigel Benjamin scored on a 14-yard touchdown pass and returned a fumble 87 yards for a touchdown.
Next up: No. 7 Dunbar at home Friday at 7 p.m. This is the game every high school football fan in Baltimore City has been waiting for. The Poets are coming off a 45-8 win over Douglass that boosted their record to 6-1. The Poets are unbeaten on the field too, but had to forfeit the second game of the season against Southwestern as punishment for a bench-clearing brawl in the win over Dunbar (D.C.) at the I-95 Kickoff Classic. The Poets have been even stingier on defense than the Engineers. While Poly has allowed a touchdown or less in six of its seven games, Dunbar has not allowed more than eight points in a game this fall. The Poets have allowed just 36 points in six games.

Continue reading "Unbeaten football teams dwindle to five" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 2:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Here's a look at how the Baltimore-area football teams fared this weekend in case you missed any scores:

Aberdeen 42, Bel Air 8
Annapolis Area Christian 29, St. Paul’s 16
Arundel 34, Broadneck 31
Atholton 40, Hammond 21
Boys’ Latin 7, John Carroll 0
Calvert Hall 22, Georgetown Prep 13
Caravel Academy, Del. 17, Curley 14
Carver 14, Edmondson 12
Catonsville 40, Towson 6
City 13, Digital Harbor 6
Du Bois 39, Bluford Drew Jemison 6
Dunbar 46, Douglass 8
Fallston 41, Lansdowne 0
Franklin 60, Kenwood 20
Gilman 27, Loyola 14

Continue reading "Week 7: Local football results" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Quarterback Brian McMahon and No. 6 Atholton scored a big 40-21 victory over Howard County rival Hammond on Friday night. (Jen Rynda/Patuxent Publishing)

Results were mixed this week for The Baltimore Sun's Top 15 football teams. Most won, but there were some notable upsets, including one in the Top 5. Following is a look at how the ranked teams held up this weekend, and who they play next.

Look for some changes in the new rankings that appear in Tuesday's paper.

Ranking/Team/Record/Latest result/Next opponent/
1. Gilman/6-1/Def. Loyola 27-14/Mount St. Joseph, Oct. 28
2. Calvert Hall/5-1/Def. Georgetown Prep 22-13/Archbishop Spalding, Fri.
3. Old Mill/7-0/Def. Annapolis 55-0/Vs. Southern, Fri.
4. McDonogh/5-2/Lost to Mount St. Joseph 21-14/At Georgetown Prep, Sat.
5. Arundel/6-1/ Def. Broadneck 34-31/Vs. Severna Park, Fri.
6. Atholton/6-1/Def. Hammond 40-21/At Wilde Lake, Sat.
7. Dunbar/6-1/ Def. Douglass 45-8/At Poly, Fri.
8. Poly/7-0/ Def. Southwestern 34-7/Vs. Dunbar, Fri.
9. Loyola/3-3/Lost to Gilman 24-17/At Mount St. Joseph, Sat.
10. Archbishop Spalding/5-2/Def. Valley Forge, Pa. 24-13/At Calvert Hall, Fri.
11. Glenelg/6-1/Lost to Reservoir 19-13 OT/Vs. Howard, Sat.
12. Catonsville/7-0/ Def. Towson 40-6/Vs. Milford Mill, Fri.
13. Westminster/6-1/Def. Winters Mill 14-0/At Century, Thurs.
14. South River/4-3/ Lost to Glen Burnie 50-32/Vs. Northeast, Fri
15. Hammond/5-2/Lost to Atholton 40-21/At Long Reach, Sat.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 7:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Junior quarterback Luke Casey threw for two touchdowns and ran for another as Mount St. Joseph celebrated its Homecoming Saturday with a 21-14 upset of No. 4 McDonogh in a Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference game.

In a game that was tied at 14 late in the fourth quarter, Casey hit Marcus Alston with a three-yard game-winning touchdown pass on a drive in which Drexel Mosby had a couple of nice runs. Sophomore defensive back Jacob Forrest-Jones all but sealed the victory with an interception in the Gael’s end zone on the Eagles' next drive.

“It was a huge win for us,” second-year Gaels coach Blake Henry said. “We want to make the playoffs and while we didn’t feel this was a must-win game for us because we have other games, it was pretty close to it.”

With the win, the Gaels (3-3) improve to 2-1 in the A Conference while the McDonogh (4-2) is also 2-1. Both trail No. 1 Gilman (6-1), which is 4-0 in the seven-team conference.

Continue reading "Mount St. Joe football upsets McDonogh" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Friday night's football game between North Carroll and Francis Scott Key has been postponed until Saturday. Kickoff will be at 7 p.m. at North Carroll.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The year before Craig Rollins took over the football program at Overlea, the Falcons posted a 3-7 record. Last fall, in his first season, it didn't look much better until the seventh week of the season when the Falcons beat Patapsco, 20-13.

They haven't lost since.

After going 5-5 last fall, the Falcons are 6-0 and in first place in Baltimore County's Class 2A-1A Division and the Class 1A North region. They're aiming to get back to the playoffs for the first time since 2006. Although they made it nine times between 1983 an 1993 with a trip to the state final in 1988, they've qualified only twice since.

Saturday's game against Western Tech (1 p.m. at CCBC-Catonsville) could determine who wins the division and regional titles. Western Tech (5-1) is the defending champion in both.

Rollins, 34, had been an assistant coach at Aberdeen and Milford Mill before taking over the Falcons. He played football at Morgan State and finished his playing career at West Chester (Pa.). After three years coaching at his alma mater, Abington Senior High in the northern Philadelphia suburbs, he and his wife, an Edgewood graduate he met at Morgan, moved to Maryland to be closer to her family.

As this week's football Coachspeak guest, Rollins talks about the Falcons' success, his coaching style and his goals for the program.

How did you end up at Overlea?

The position opened up last year and I applied for the position. They wanted to go in a different direction. Overlea’s had a tradition of winning and it’s definitely a good place to be, good rec programs around the area. And it was my first opportunity to become a head coach.

Continue reading "Coachspeak: Overlea football's Craig Rollins" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
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Former Calvert Hall football coach and longtime math teacher Augie Miceli will be honored before the Cardinals' home game Friday night. (Brendan Cavanaugh/Patuxent Publishing)

Calvert Hall will honor former football coach Augie Miceli at a ceremony before Friday night’s game to dedicate a coaches’ wing in his name in Paul Angelo Russo Stadium.

Miceli coached the Cardinals from 1974 to 1987 and won 104 games – more than any other Cardinals’ coach. In 1979, he was named The Baltimore Sun’s All-Metro Coach of the Year after leading the Cardinals to an undefeated season and the MSA A Conference championship.

Miceli’s teams won a handful of MSA titles, but he is perhaps most revered for winning seven straight Turkey Bowls, the most consecutive wins for the Cardinals in the Thanksgiving Day rivalry with Loyola that is in its 92nd year.

Last year, Miceli celebrated his 50th year of teaching at Calvert Hall, where he helped out with the football team at times after leaving the head coaching position.

Continue reading "Calvert Hall to honor former football coach Miceli" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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Joe Holland, who has New Town's football team off to a 5-1 start after last week's 56-8 win over Lansdowne, was named the Ravens' High School Coach of the Week Wednesday.

Against Lansdowne, the Titans gave up their only points on an early kickoff return and the defense took charge the rest of the way. The defense has allowed just 38 points this season while the Titans have scored 243.

“First, we take our hats off to the offensive line,” Holland said in a news release. “We have a motley crew of guys and two of them are under 200 pounds. Our team is watching film, and we’ve changed our blocking scheme. We finished with 359 rushing yards last week, spread amongst five running backs.

“Our defense has been phenomenal, and we have great leadership on both sides of the ball. Quarterback Shawheem Dowdy has committed himself to the game, and we have guys willing to follow. We haven’t had to rely on one person. We have a lot of talent across the board, and every week we have different players stepping up. We’ll continue to focus on getting all three aspects of the game right, so we don’t give up points. I hope our guys continue to stay hungry.”

Continue reading "New Town's Holland named Ravens' Coach of the Week" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Jostling for first place in the regional playoff standings is getting serious with six of 10 weeks in the books, but plenty of Baltimore-area teams held on to their top spots after last weekend's action.

Only one regional leader changed this week -- in Class 4A North, where Poly edged Catonsville for the top spot after the two were tied last week. Both remain unbeaten, but because of the strength and classifications of their opponents, they could keep bouncing back and forth.

Two other teams also broke out of ties -- Glenelg in Class 2A South and Fallston in Class 2A East. Both teams are also 6-0.

Here are the other teams that held on to their top spots:
Old Mill in Class 4A East
North Harford in Class 3A North
Atholton in Class 3A East
Edmondson in Class 2A North
Overlea in Class 1A North
Dunbar in Class 1A South.

Seventeen public school teams remain undefeated, including Old Mill and Overlea.

To see how your team is faring in the regional standings, check out the MPSSAA web site.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Players on both teams sported pink gloves and tape during Dunbar's game against Edmondson on Saturday. (Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun)

A number of high school football teams are showing their pink sides in October to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but none more than Dunbar's.

At Saturday night’s game between the Poets and Edmondson, players on both sides sported pink gloves, pink cleat covers, pink wrist bands, pink shoelaces, pink towels and other pink apparel. Not everyone wore everything, but each player displayed some pink. On the Dunbar side, even the coaches were decked out in pink polo shirts with pink ribbons.

Poets coach Lawrence Smith said he believes it’s important for teenage boys to know about a disease that could affect their mothers, grandmothers and other women close to them.

“It’s a disease that can kill you,” Smith said, “and they need to know that it’s real. We do an awareness with our kids. We don’t just wear it. We do an awareness with them so they know what’s going on. It’s a big deal. They’re not just wearing the pink, they know why they’re wearing the pink.”

Poets running back Charles Brown has seen the effects of the disease up close.

Continue reading "Poets football players comfortable in pink" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 2:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Calvert Hall quarterback Thomas Stuart tries to escape Gilman's defense during the Greyhounds' 28-21 win on Friday. The loss dropped the Cardinals one spot in the state media poll. (Jen Rynda/Patuxent Publishing)

Calvert Hall and Arundel suffered their first losses last week, and it cost them in the ESPN High School Maryland football media poll. The Cardinals dropped from No. 3 to No. 4 after falling to No. 2 Gilman, 28-21, and Arundel plummeted from No. 7 to No. 17 after falling to then-No. 10 Old Mill, 47-10.

Old Mill moved up to No. 7, while Atholton, Dunbar and Poly each moved up a notch. McDonogh is up two spots, Catonsville jumped three and Loyola dropped seven. Glenelg held on at No. 25.

To see where your team falls this week, check out the full state football poll.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Franklin's football team finished what it started Thursday by holding onto its lead and defeating Milford Mill, 34-24, Monday afternoon in a Baltimore County Class 4A-3A contest.

The game had to be called due to darkness Thursday when the EMT arrived late, delaying the 4 p.m. start by an hour at Milford Mill, which does not have lights.

With a 28-22 lead and 10:24 to go, the Indians resumed the game on Milford Mill's half-yard line and quarterback Jackson Thornton sneaked in for a touchdown. The Millers held him off three times, but on fourth down, he finally got over the end line.

"We would like to have scored the first time," Franklin coach Anthony Burgos said, "but it kind of worked out in our favor, because we burned about three minutes."

Continue reading "Franklin football finishes off Milford Mill" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 7:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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After a weekend with some of the biggest games of the season, here's a look at a few statistics that stand out after Week 6:

-2
Yards of offense for Edmondson in the first half of a 20-6 loss to No. 7 Dunbar

1/2
Yard line of Milford Mill – where Franklin will have the ball when play resumes Monday with the Indians leading 28-22 in a game suspended Friday because of darkness

2
Catonsville returns for touchdowns in the first three minutes of the 38-17 win over Eastern Tech – Josh Hylton’s 90-yard kickoff return and Deniko Carter’s 65-yard punt return

2
Aberdeen touchdowns negated by penalties in the Eagles’ 14-12 loss to McDonough of Charles County

3
Touchdowns scored this season by City with no time remaining on the clock, including Brandon Jones’ 33-yard pass reception from Steffen Wilkens in the second quarter of Friday’s 26-6 win over Mervo

5
Straight Ben Eaton Memorial Trophy wins by Dunbar in the rivalry with Edmondson marked by the award dedicated to the beloved Dunbar coach – a mentor to both head coaches, Dunbar’s Lawrence Smith and Edmondson’s Dante Jones – who died in August 2007

6
Average margin of victory in the last five Gilman-Calvert Hall contests – three won by Gilman, which leads the series 32-21-2

6
Local teams remaining unbeaten at 6-0: No. 3 Old Mill, No. 8 Poly, No. 11 Glenelg, No. 12 Catonsville, Fallston and Overlea

Continue reading "Football: By The Numbers for Week 6" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 6:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Six is the number of the week in high school football. After six weeks, six teams remain unbeaten at 6-0. Which ones will be left standing after seven weeks? Here are the candidates with a look at their most recent wins and next week's matchups.

WAY TOO EASY
No. 12 Catonsville 39, Eastern Tech 17
The Comets have rolled through the heart of their Baltimore County Class 4A-3A Division, scoring an average of 38.2 points. In the past three weeks, they have beaten Franklin, Hereford and Eastern Tech by an average of 28.7 points. Special teams got them off to a quick start against the Mavericks. Josh Hylton returned the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown. After forcing a punt on the Mavericks’ first possession, Deniko Carter returned it 65 yards for a 13-0 lead in less than three minutes. DeAndre’ Lane had 10 carries for 108 yards and two touchdowns. Hylton’s 70-yard touchdown run gave the Comets a 39-0 lead with almost nine minutes left in the third quarter.
Next up: At Towson on Saturday at 1 p.m. The Generals are 1-5 and considering they lost to Hereford 42-0 while the Comets beat the Bulls 50-14, Catonsville’s unbeaten streak likely will live on.

Fallston 35, C. Milton Wright 11
Quarterback John Hetterman threw two touchdown passes in the first half to get the Cougars off to a quick start in a game in which they never trailed. The Cougars are 3-0 in the UCBAC Chesapeake Division with North Harford right behind at 2-0 as the division title could come down to their Oct. 28 meeting. Friday, the Cougars led 21-3 at the half. Hetterman hit Chris Rose with an 80-yard touchdown strike to open the game and then tossed a 27-yard scoring pass to Connor Davis. Marc Badger also scored two touchdowns
Next up: Lansdowne at home Friday at 7 p.m. The Vikings, who play in Baltimore County’s Class 2A-1A division, are 2-4, coming off a 56-8 loss to New Town. The Cougars, with their offensive weapons, should be in good shape to keep their win streak alive.

Continue reading "Six football teams still chasing perfect seasons" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
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In case you missed anything over the three-day football weekend just passed, here's a complete list of scores for Baltimore-area teams in Week 6. The game between Franklin and Milford Mill was suspended due to darkness with Franklin leading the Millers, 28-22, and will resume Monday at 3:30 p.m. at Milford Mill.

Atholton 56, Oakland Mills 7
Boys' Latin 37, St. Anne's Belfield, Va. 14
Catonsville 39, Eastern Tech 17
Chesapeake-AA 44, Glen Burnie 14
Chesapeake-B 40, Loch Raven 10
Curley, 26, Annapolis Area Christian 23
City 26, Mervo 6
Du Bois 28, Maritime Industries 6
Dulaney 44, Patapsco 6
Dunbar 20, Edmondson 6
Dundalk 41, Randallstown 0
Edgewood 30, Rising Sun 22
Digital Harbor 18, Carver 0
Dundalk 41, Randallstown 0
Fallston 35, C. Milton Wright 11
Forest Park 28, Bluford Drew Jemison 12
Friends 41, Mount Carmel 12
Gilman 28, Calvert Hall 21
Glenelg 23, Long Reach 20
Hammond 35, Marriotts Ridge 0
Havre de Grace 28, Joppatowne 26
Hereford 42, Towson 6

Continue reading "Week 6: Local football results" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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After six weeks of a 10-week season, it's getting to crunch time for some football teams. But The Baltimore Sun's Top 15 fared well this week. Only two teams lost -- to teams ranked above them in the poll.

Following is a look at how the Top 15 held up this weekend, and who they play next.

As usual, new rankings will be in Tuesday's paper.

Ranking/Team/Record/Latest result/Next opponent/
1. Gilman/5-1/Def. Calvert Hall 28-21/At Loyola, Sat.
2. Calvert Hall/4-1/Lost to Gilman 28-21/Vs. Georgetown Prep, Sat.
3. Old Mill/6-0/ Def. Arundel 47-10/Vs. Annapolis, Sat.
4. McDonogh/5-1/Def. Loyola 42-17/Vs. Mount St. Joseph, Sat.
5. Arundel/5-1/Lost to Old Mill 47-10/At Broadneck, Fri.
6. Atholton/5-1/Def. Oakland Mills 56-7/At Hammond, Fri.
7. Dunbar/5-1/ Def. Edmondson 20-6/Vs. Douglass, Fri.
8. Poly/6-0Def. Patterson 44-34/At Southwestern, Fri.
9. Loyola/3-2/Lost to McDonogh 42-17/Vs. Gilman, Sat.
10. Archbishop Spalding/4-2/ Def. Georgetown Prep 23-16/Vs. Valley Forge, Pa., Fri.
11. Glenelg/6-0/Def. Long Reach 23-20 /Vs. Reservoir, Fri.
12. Catonsville/6-0/Def. Eastern Tech 39-17/At Towson, Sat.
13. Westminster/5-1/Def. Francis Scott Key 49-6/Vs. Winters Mill, Fri.
14. South River/4-2/Def. Severna Park 33-28/At Glen Burnie, Fri.
15. Hammond/4-1/Def. At Marriotts Ridge 35-0/Vs. Atholton, Fri.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 11:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Gilman's Micah Kiser wraps up Calvert Hall's Trevor Williams in the second quarter of the Greyhounds' 28-21 win over the visiting Cardinals Friday afternoon. (Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun)

Alleghany 57, Frankfort, W.Va. 36

Bowie 30, Parkdale 6

Curley 26, Annapolis Area Christian 23

City 26, Mervo 6

Douglass-PG 32, Crossland 24

Du Bois 28, Maritime 6

Eleanor Roosevelt 48, Laurel 6

Edgewood 30, Rising Sun 22

Fallston 35, C.M. Wright 11

Forest Park 28, Bluford Drew Jemison 12

Friendly 40, Forestville 0

Continue reading "Friday's statewide high school football scores" »

Posted by David Selig at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
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Old Mill's Nadim Raddar sacks Arundel quarterback Cooper Hibbs in the second quarter of the Patriots' 47-10 win Thursday night. Hibbs finished 21-for-35 for 236 yards and a TD, but he was sacked six times. (Gene Sweeney Jr./Baltimore Sun)

Football scores from throughout the state on a busy Thursday night:

Atholton 56, Oakland Mills 7

Blake 33, Wootton 23

Boonsboro 39, Catoctin 33

Brunswick 50, Clear Spring 25

Bullis 42, Paul VI, Va. 20

Catonsville 39, Eastern Tech 17

Chesapeake-AA 44, Glen Burnie 14

Chesapeake-B 40, Loch Raven 10

Dundalk 41, Randallstown 0

Franklin at Milford Mill suspended (will be completed Monday)

Frederick 62, Oakdale 35

Glenelg 23, Long Reach 20

Continue reading "Thursday's statewide high school football scores" »

Posted by David Selig at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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When the EMT required to be on the sideline during any high school football game arrived at Milford Mill an hour late for Thursday's game against Franklin, both coaches knew they would have to hurry to get the game in.

But starting at 5 p.m. even in early October is just too late to beat sunset.

Milford Mill has no lights, so the game had to be called for darkness with the Indians holding a 28-22 lead with 10:24 remaining. The Indians will return to Milford on Monday at 3:30 p.m. to pick up where they left off -- driving from inside the Millers' 1-yard line.

"I don't want to lay blame on anybody. Those things happen," Milford Mill coach Reggie White said. "The EMT guy was late and both teams pass [which lengthens the game]. We skipped halftime pretty much. It was very quick and we went right back into the game, but it got too dark."

The game had been back-and-forth to that point that neither team scored consecutive touchdowns.The Indians got two touchdowns from Reggie Ellis and scored the go-ahead touchdown on a pass from quarterback Jackson Thornton to All-Metro wide receiver Ian Thomas. If they can tack on a quick score Monday, the Indians could take control.

Continue reading "Franklin-Milford Mill football to pick up 4th quarter Monday" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 9:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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Glenelg's Butch Shaffer was named this fall's second Raven's High School Coach of the Week after leading the Gladiators to a 17-14 victory over Hammond to remain undefeated.

With the win, sealed by Luke Brister's 42-yard field goal with 15 seconds left, the No. 11 Gladiators have already matched their win total from a year ago, when they finished 5-5. They remain the only unbeaten team in Howard County after dealing Hammond its first loss.

Running back Nick Crabill led the Gladiators with 116 yards on 25 carries and also made several key plays at defensive back. Quarterback Mark Darden scored on a 1-yard run and on an 18-yard touchdown pass to Glenn Lucas. Brister kicked both extra points.

Shaffer joins last week's winner Rich Hambor, from Catonsville, in receiving a $2,000 donation to the school's football program. The two will be invited to join future winners at the Ravens' Dec. 24 game against the Browns at M&T Bank Stadium, where the Ravens will named their High School Coach of the Year.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 5:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Dante Jones has Edmondson off to a 4-1 start this fall, with the Red Storm's only loss coming in a 12-0 defensive struggle with No. 8 Poly. At midseason, the team stands just behind the unbeaten Engineers in Baltimore City’s Division I and in first place in its Class 2A North region.

A 1995 Dunbar graduate, Jones played on the Poets' first state championship team in 1994. After going on to play at Delaware State, Jones took over at Edmondson in 2004 and has taken them to the playoffs four times, including their only state title in 2006. Jones, 35, is also the Edmondson athletic director.

Saturday night, the Red Storm faces Dunbar at 6 p.m. at Poly's stadium. The game against the Poets (4-1) marks the fifth annual showdown for the Ben Eaton Memorial Trophy, named for the Poets' beloved late coach, whom Jones also played for.

The Red Storm is looking for its first victory in the series since the trophy was awarded for the first time in 2007 just a few months after Eaton's sudden death.

This week's Coachspeak guest, Jones answers five questions about Eaton's influence, the Red Storm's success and the state of Baltimore City football.

What does it mean to you to have this rivalry marked by a trophy dedicated to Coach Eaton?

That’s an amazing thing. Coach Eaton was a great person, a great mentor, a great friend, so to have this in his honor is just a blessing to be a part of.

Continue reading "Coachspeak: Edmondson football's Dante Jones" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Austin Ensor and North Harford defeated Aberdeen Friday night to take over the top spot in the Class 3A North regional standings. (Patuxent Publishing)

The number of local teams in first place in their regions jumped from seven last week to 10 this week. Several spots turned on head-to-head contests as North Harford supplanted Aberdeen and Glenelg dropped Hammond. Here are the regional leaders:

Catonsville and Poly in a tie in Class 4A North
Old Mill in Class 4A East
North Harford in Class 3A North
Atholton in Class 3A East
Edmondson in Class 2A North
Glenelg (in a tie with Patuxent) in Class 2A South
Fallston (in a tie with Kent Island) in Class 2A East
Overlea in Class 1A North
Dunbar in Class 1A South

The state has 20 undefeated teams remaining, including Catonsville, Poly, Old Mill, Glenelg, Fallston and Overlea. Arundel also is unbeaten but was edged out for first place this week by Old Mill although their head-to-head meeting Thursday night could settle the top spot for good.

To see how your team is faring in the regional standings, check out the MPSSAA web site.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Glenelg fans celebrate the fourth quarter field goal that gave them a 17-14 win over Hammond on Friday night. The Gladiators remained unbeaten with that win and debuted in the state media poll this week. (Noah Scialom/Patuxent Publishing)

This week's local newcomer to the ESPN High School Maryland football media poll is Glenelg, which earned a spot after a 17-14 win over then-No. 16 Hammond. The No. 25 Gladiators are 5-0, with one of those wins coming by forfeit from Atholton.

However, beating Hammond, which knocked off River Hill earlier in the season, boosted the Gladiators' stock this week as they remain the only undefeated team in a tight Howard County race.

Glenelg is one of 15 undefeated teams in this week's Top 25.

Last week, Catonsville jumped into the state poll for the first time in school history. Sheldon Shealer, who compiles the poll from media votes, noted that the Comets' 50-14 win over Hereford on Friday was the 50th career win for coach Rich Hambor. Will the Comets score 51 this week?

Continue reading "Glenelg debuts in state football poll" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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With half of the high school football regular season in the books, here is a look at some of the numbers that stood out in Week 5:

2
Devontes to score off turnovers in the fourth quarter in Maritime Industries' 25-14 win over Forest Park – Devonte Tabb on a fumble recovery and Devonte Lewis on an interception.

3
Touchdowns on his first seven carries for Chesapeake-AA running back Deon McDaniel, who finished with four touchdowns in a 45-8 win over Northeast

4
Local teams to suffer their first losses of the season this week – Milford Mill, Patterson Mill, Aberdeen and Hammond

5
Interceptions for Old Mill’s Torie Wagner in the last two weeks

8
Local teams remaining undefeated – Calvert Hall, Old Mill, Arundel, Poly, Catonsville, Fallston, Glenelg and Overlea

9
Straight wins for Overlea – the area’s longest active winning streak. Calvert Hall, which had a bye this week, has eight.

12
Points surrendered by Poly through the first five weeks

15
Seconds left when Glenelg’s Luke Brister booted the longest field goal of his career – 42 yards – to beat Hammond, 17-14

16
Years since Catonsville beat Hereford before Friday night’s 50-14 Comets win

17
Points allowed by McDonogh in the last four weeks

Continue reading "Football: By The Numbers for Week 5" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 6:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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At the midpoint of the regular season, eight local football teams remain undefeated. Four fell this week as it keeps getting tougher to keep that 0 in the loss column. At least one will fall next weekend as Old Mill and Arundel battle it out Thursday night in a battle of undefeated Anne Arundel County teams.

Here's a look at which teams remain unbeaten and who they face next:

WAY TOO EASY
No. 2 Calvert Hall did not play
After beating Coolidge last weekend, the Cardinals (4-0) had a bye week.
Next up: At No. 1 Gilman on Friday at 2:30 p.m. The Cardinals have won two straight over the Greyhounds, but it’s never easy as last year’s come-from-behind victory showed. Trailing 21-7 going into the fourth quarter, the Cardinals scored three touchdowns – two in the final two minutes – in a victory that ultimately gave them their first championship since 1882 and The Baltimore Sun’s final No. 1 ranking. Look for another battle as the MIAA A Conference teams jockey for position in the standings that will determine the matchups for the first-ever post-season playoffs. Last year: Calvert Hall 26, Gilman 21.

NO QUESTION
No. 3 Old Mill 40, Meade 14
Rob Chesson ran for 222 yards and three touchdowns and Torie Wagner had three interceptions as the Patriots improved to 5-0. The Patriots rolled up a 33-0 lead on Chesson’s three touchdown runs and touchdown passes by Deonte Shields to Wagner and Ryan Kauffman. While the Patriots' offense averages 40 points a game, the defense is allowing just six.
Next up: At No. 5 Arundel on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. This rivalry has become one of the area’s hottest, because not only do these two usually battle for the county title, but they also battle for the regional title. In the past five years, Arundel has won four times and the Patriots, three, but the two years before that, Old Mill won both regular-season games and both regional playoff meetings. The Patriots have a variety of offensive weapons and their defense will be the best the Wildcats have seen all season. Last year: Arundel 30, Old Mill 7.

No. 5 Arundel 49, North County 13
The Wildcats rebounded from the 31-30 scare South River delivered the previous week. Cooper Hibbs continues to lead a dominating Wildcats offense, throwing for three touchdowns and rushing for another. The first-year starter completed 24 of 30 passes for 236 yards. The Wildcats are 5-0 overall and in the Anne Arundel County league.
Next up: No. 3 Old Mill at home Thursday at 6:30 p.m. THE GAME of the season in Anne Arundel County features a Wildcats’ offense that has scored 218 points vs. a Patriots’ defense that has given up just 30. Last year, the Wildcats won big with their strong aerial game and a tough defensive effort, forcing three turnovers and holding the Patriots to three trips into the red zone. Last year: Arundel 30, Old Mill 7.

Continue reading "Football: Look who's still undefeated" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 4:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Not many surprises this week as high school football reached the midpoint of the regular season. Here is a complete slate of scores for the Baltimore-area teams from this weekend:

Arundel 49, North County 13
Atholton 54, Marriotts Ridge 6
Bel Air 36, Joppatowne 16
Catonsville 50, Hereford 14
Chesapeake- AA 45, Northeast 8
Chesapeake-B 16, Sparrows Point 13
Curley 27, Pallotti 20
Du Bois 18, National Academy 12
Dunbar 53, Digital Harbor 13
Edgewood 42, Harford Tech 6
Edmondson 14, Southwestern 7
Fallston 38, Havre de Grace 12
Franklin 41, Towson 6
Gilman 42, Spalding 8
Glenelg 17, Hammond 14
Howard 27, Oakland Mills 15
Lansdowne 32, Loch Raven 27
Lewis 12, Lake Clifton 0
Long Reach 42, Centennial 21
Loyola 50, Fork Union Prep, Va. 40
Manchester Valley 14, Francis Scott Key 7
Maritime Ind. 25, Forest Park 14
MATHS 20, Mount Carmel 0
McDonogh 35, Landon 3
Milford Mill 47, Woodlawn 7
Mount St. Joseph 20, Georgetown Prep 15
New Town 61, Randallstown 0
North Harford 38, Aberdeen 12

Continue reading "Week 5: Local football results" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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After five weeks, we have reached the middle of the regular season. Following is a look at how The Baltimore Sun's Top 15 football teams held up this weekend and who they play next.

As usual, new rankings will be in Tuesday's paper.

Ranking/Team/Record/Latest result/Next opponent/
1. Gilman/4-1/Def. Archbishop Spalding 42-8/Vs. Calvert Hall, Fri.
2. Calvert Hall/4-0/Did not play/At Gilman, Fri.
3. Old Mill/5-0/ Def. Meade 40-14/At Arundel, Thurs.
4. McDonogh/4-1/ Def. Landon 35-3/Vs. Loyola, Fri.
5. Arundel/5-0/Def. North County 49-13/Vs. Old Mill, Thurs.
6. Atholton/4-1/Def. Marriotts Ridge 54-6/Vs. Oakland Mills, Thurs.
7. Dunbar/4-1/Def. Digital Harbor 53-13/Vs. Edmondson, Sat. at Poly
8. Poly/5-0/Def. Douglass 42-6/Vs. Patterson, Fri.
9. Hammond/4-1/Lost to Glenelg 17-14/At Marriotts Ridge, Thurs.
10. Archbishop Spalding/3-2/Lost to Gilman 42-8/Vs. Georgetown Prep, Fri.
11. Westminster/4-1/Def. Liberty 42-0/At Francis Scott Key, Thurs.
12. Loyola/3-1/Def. Fork Union, Va. 50-40/At McDonogh, Fri.
13. Catonsville/5-0/Def. Hereford 50-14/Vs. Eastern Tech, Thurs.
14. South River/3-2/Def. Annapolis 48-26/At Severna Park, Thurs.
15. River Hill/3-2/Def. Wilde Lake 38-0/Vs. Howard, Thurs.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 8:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Poly's Augie Waibel won the first Ravens High School Coach of the Year Award 1997. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)

Catonsville football coach Rich Hambor's selection Wednesday as the first Ravens' High School Coach of the Week for this season made us wonder about past winners of the Ravens' Coach of the Year award.

This is the 15th season the Ravens have awarded Baltimore-area high school football coaches, and while we could remember some of the winners, we had to check the archives to list them all.

Here they are:

1997 Augie Waibel, Poly
1998 Nick Arminio, Eastern Tech
1999 Pete Pompey, Edmondson
2000 Dom Damico, McDonogh
2001 Steve Turnbaugh, Hereford
2002 Dave Eubank, Dundalk
2003 Gene Brown, South Carroll
2004 Ben Eaton, Dunbar
2005 Brad Wilson, Westminster
2006 Dante Jones, Edmondson
2007 Lawrence Smith, Dunbar
2008 Tony Shermeyer, Century
2009 Rick Conner, Linganore
2010 Damon Bomar, Forest Park

Continue reading "Has your team's coach been a Ravens Coach of the Year" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Annapolis Area Christian School's football team was schedule to play its Homecoming game Friday night against St. John's-Catholic Prep, but the Frederick team has suffered so many injuries in recent weeks that it cannot safely field a team this week and has forfeited the game to AACS.

Both schools are small and don't have huge football rosters, so Annapolis Area athletic director Jim Domoracki said he understands the situation.

"You have to keep safety first," Domoracki said. "We've played them in all sports in many seasons and it's just one of those crazy situations. They feel terrible about it, but we understand. You have to make the best of a tough situation. It could very easily happen to us."

Homecoming, however, will go on.

The game and its surrounding festivities were scheduled to be held at Arundel High School's turf field. Now, the field hockey game between the Eagles and Pallotti will serve as the Homecoming centerpiece. It will be played in place of the football game, Friday night at 7 p.m. at Arundel.

With the forfeit, the Eagles football team improves to 4-1 overall and remains 2-0 in the MIAA B Conference. St. John's is in the C Conference.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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As we near midseason, every race for a football regional playoff berth remains up in the air, of course, but some teams are asserting themselves and others are falling a bit too far behind.

Seven Baltimore-area teams hold top spots after four weeks of competition:

Poly in Class 4A North
Arundel in Class 4A East
Aberdeen in Class 3A North
Hammond in Class 3A East
Edmondson in Class 2A North
Overlea in Class 1A North
Dunbar in Class 1A South

Poly, Arundel, Aberdeen, Hammond and Overlea are undefeated. Poly and Arundel are both three-quarters of a point ahead of two other unbeaten teams -- Catonsville and Old Mill, respectively.

Glenelg (2A South) and Fallston (2A East) also have been edged out at the top for the time being, despite their unbeaten starts.

To see where your team falls, check out the MPSSAA web site.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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After 13 years at Havre de Grace, including last year’s state Class 1A title game appearance, football coach Johnny Brooks headed down Route 40 to take over the floundering program at Aberdeen. It didn’t take him long to turn things around.

The Eagles, who finished 1-9 last season, are 4-0 and average 40 points per game behind veteran Kenny Faulcon, a first-year quarterback who has thrown for 750 yards and 12 touchdowns. Brooks took his coaching staff with him to Aberdeen, where the Eagles have not made the playoffs since 2004, a year after they won their only state title.

Brooks, who now teaches social studies at Aberdeen, graduated from Havre de Grace. As the Warriors’ coach, he took them to the playoffs seven of the last nine seasons.

Friday night, the Eagles face their toughest test -- perhaps of the season -- when they host North Harford, which went undefeated through the UCBAC Chesapeake Division last season. Not only are the two teams battling for the top spot in the Chespeake Division, but they're in the same region -- Class 3A North -- where the Eagles are in first place and the Hawks are in a tie for fourth.

As this week’s football Coachspeak guest, Brooks answered five questions about the transition to Aberdeen and the Eagles’ quick start.

Why did you make the move to Aberdeen after having so much success at Havre de Grace?

I’d been at Havre de Grace for a long time and I was looking for a little refresher. I was looking for a different challenge, so Aberdeen gave me the opportunity and I took it. It wasn’t anything in particular. I was just looking to move on somewhere else and Aberdeen did have an opening, so I just went there and I thought I’d make the best of it.

Continue reading "Coachspeak: Aberdeen football's Johnny Brooks" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Catonsville coach Rich Hambor is the season’s first Ravens High School Coach of the Week after guiding the Comets to a 35-7 win over Franklin Friday night, a victory that helped them crack the state's Top 25 for the first time in program history.

The Comets are 4-0 and hold sole possession of first place in Baltimore County’s Class 4A-3A Division. Ranked No. 13 by The Baltimore Sun, the Comets are No. 23 in the ESPN High School Maryland football media poll.

“It’s nice to have our school and community recognized for the work we have put in,” Hambor said in a news release. “But whether we get ranked or not, we want to keep climbing. We know that it’s only going to be there for a while, so we need to savor it, but we also know there’s going to be a need for improvement.”

Continue reading "Catonsville's Hambor named Ravens Coach of the Week" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 6:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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After improving to 4-0, Catonsville earned its first ever ranking in the ESPN High School Maryland football media poll Tuesday. The Comets are coming off a 35-7 win over Franklin and debut in the poll at No. 23.

Good Counsel remains atop the poll for Week 4 followed by Gilman at No. 2 and Calvert Hall at No. 3. Arundel is No. 7 while Old Mill, McDonogh, Dunbar, Poly, Atholton, Hammond and Loyola have consecutive spots further down in the Top 20. Archbishop Spalding dropped to 25.

To see where all of the local teams are ranked this week and which others are getting a few votes, check out the entire ESPN Maryland football poll.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 4:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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It's hard to believe, but fall is officially here and we're nearing midseason as we head toward Week 5 of the 10-week high school football regular season. The top teams have begun to separate themselves from the pack and here's a look at some of the key statistics gathered from this weekend's contests:

2
One-point losses by 2-2 South River

3
First-half points allowed by McDonogh through four games

3
Interceptions by Poly’s Donovan Riley, including one returned for a touchdown, in a 12-0 win over Edmondson

3
Kickoffs by Georgetown Prep to start the game against Gilman – the first two went out of bounds and Cyrus Jones returned the third for a touchdown

4
Times more wins this season than last for Aberdeen, which is 4-0 after going 1-9 in 2010

6
Points allowed by Poly in four games

6
Turnovers by River Hill in its 12-9 loss to Hammond

6
Sacks by Catonsville in its 35-7 win over Franklin

8
Straight wins by Calvert Hall, the area’s longest active winning streak

12
Local teams remaining undefeated – Calvert Hall, Old Mill, Arundel, Poly, Hammond, Catonsville, Aberdeen, Fallston, Glenelg, Overlea, Milford Mill and Patterson Mill

Continue reading "Football By The Numbers: Week 4" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 6:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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After four weeks of competition, a dozen local football teams remain undefeated. Four teams – Archbishop Spalding, Edmondson, Joppatowne and St. Mary’s – suffered their first losses this weekend. Those who continue to boast a zero in the L column kept their records perfect in a variety of ways. Here’s a look.

NO QUESTION
No. 2 Calvert Hall 41, Coolidge, D.C. 7
The Cardinals used their bench liberally all game long and scored their first touchdown less than two minutes into the game when John Mooney hit Erik Evans with a five-yard touchdown pass. Back-up quarterback Mooney threw for two touchdowns and Jamal Goodman ran for two. Calvert Hall has the area’s longest active winning streak at seven games.
Next up: At Gilman on Oct. 7 at 2:30 p.m. The Cardinals have next weekend off before they head to Gilman for their MIAA A Conference opener. Calvert Hall, the defending A Conference champ, has won two straight over the Greyhounds. Last year: Calvert Hall 26, Gilman 21.

No. 3 Old Mill 49, Northeast 0
Rob Chesson scored three first-quarter touchdowns and the blitz was on. Chesson finished with four touchdowns, three rushing and one on a punt return. After a hard-fought 10-0 season-opening win over Broadneck, the Patriots outscored their next three opponents 150-16 with three shutouts.
Next up: At Meade on Friday at 6:30 p.m. The Mustangs (2-2) played Arundel tight before falling 28-12 two weeks ago and dropped their season opener to Southern by a point. Last year: Old Mill 34, Meade 8.

No. 15 Catonsville 35, Franklin 7
The Comets avenged three straight losses to the Indians in a big way. Sean Lipscomb forced a fumble on the Indians’ first play from scrimmage, resulting in an Aaron Jones to Deniko Carter 24-yard touchdown pass two plays later. D’Andre Lane ran for 135 of the Comets rushing yards.
Next up: Hereford at home Friday at 7 p.m. The Comets continue through the heart of their Baltimore County Class 4A-3A schedule with the always-competitive Bulls (2-2), who are coming off a big 26-6 win over Eastern Tech. Last meeting: Hereford 23, Catonsville 0 in 2008.

Continue reading "Football: A dozen teams remain unbeaten" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Rain intruded again on the fourth week of high school football, but most games were played anyway. Here are the local results for the weekend along with postponed games listed at the end:

Aberdeen 36, Joppatowne 0

Annapolis Area Christian 35, St. Mary's 13

Archbishop Curley 22, Boys' Latin 7

Arundel 31, South River 30

Atholton 24, Reservoir 14

Calvert Hall 41, Coolidge, D.C. 7

Catonsville 35, Franklin 7

Century 7, FSK 0

Chesapeake-BC 44, Lansdowne 0

City 20, Carver 6

Digital Harbor 22, Southwestern 0

Dunbar 28, Mervo 8

Elkton 29, Edgewood 0

Fallston 21, Bel Air 14

Frederick Christian 42, Friends 0

Forest Park 6, National Academy 0

Gilman 38, Georgetown Prep 8

Glen Burnie 22, Broadneck 0

Glenelg 41, Oakland Mills 14

Continue reading "Week 4: Local football results" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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With four weeks in the books, here is a look at how The Baltimore Sun's Top 15 football teams fared this weekend, and who they play next.

As usual, new rankings will be in Tuesday's paper.

Ranking/Team/Record/Latest result/Next opponent
1. Gilman/3-1/Def. Georgetown Prep 38-8/Vs. Archbishop Spalding, Fri.
2. Calvert Hall/4-0/Def. Coolidge (D.C.) 41-7/At Gilman, Oct. 7
3. Old Mill/4-0/ Def. Northeast 49-0/At Meade, Fri.
4. McDonogh/3-1/Def. Archbishop Spalding 20-7/Vs. Landon, Sat.
5. Arundel/4-0/Def. South River 31-30/At North County, Fri.
6. Atholton/3-1/Def Reservoir 24-14/Vs. Marriots Ridge, Fri.
7. Dunbar/3-1/Def. Mervo 28-8/Vs. Digital Harbor, Fri.
8. River Hill/2-2/Lost to Hammond 12-9/At Wilde Lake, Fri.
9. Archbishop Spalding/3-1/Lost to McDonogh 20-7/At Gilman, Fri.
10. Poly/4-0/Def. Edmondson 12-0/Vs. Douglass, Fri.
11. Westminster/3-1/Def. North Carroll 42-14/Vs. Liberty, Fri.
12. Loyola/2-1/Def. Maryland Christian 35-0/At Fork Union, Va., Fri.
13. Hammond/4-0/Def. River Hill 12-9/Vs. Glenelg, Fri.
14. Franklin/2-2/Lost to Catonsville 35-7/Vs. Towson, Fri.
15. Catonsville/4-0/Def. Franklin 35-7/Vs. Hereford, Fri.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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High school football scores from throughout the state:

Atlantic Shores Christian, Va. 26, St. James 13

Boonsboro 28, Clear Spring 7

C.H. Flowers 14, Northwestern-PG 13

Calvert 21, La Plata 12

Calvert Hall 41, Coolidge, D.C. 7

Central 20, Fairmont Heights 6

Chesapeake-BC 44, Lansdowne 0

DuVal 21, Bladensburg 12

Eleanor Roosevelt 33, Oxon Hill 0

Fort Hill 27, Allderdice, Pa. 9

Frederick Christian Academy 42, Friends 0

Good Counsel 49, Gonzaga, D.C. 7

Continue reading "Saturday's statewide high school football scores" »

Posted by David Selig at 8:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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Four local Friday football games had to be postponed until Monday because of -- what else? -- rain. Two involve involve undefeated teams.

Masonville Cove will play at Maritime Industries at 3:45 p.m.
Milford Mill (3-0) will play at Perry Hall at 6 p.m.
Patterson Mill (3-0) will play at Perryville (3-0) at 6 p.m.
South Carroll will play at Winters Mill at 6 p.m.

This is the second Monday game in four weeks for Milford Mill, Patterson Mill and Perryville thanks to all the rain. Perry Hall got its Week 2 game in because the Gators played at Catonsville on the artificial turf.

"I've been coaching 12 years, I played in college and I played in high school, " Patterson Mill coach Josh Mason said, "and I can't ever remember us having this much rain. We haven't had a normal week yet."

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Tonight's football game between Loch Raven and Owings Mills scheduled for 7 p.m. at Loch Raven has been postponed until tomorrow. The game will be played at Franklin, which has a turf field, at 11:30 a.m.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Archbishop Spalding's football team will hold a fund raiser for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network as part of Friday's night's MIAA A Conference home game with McDonogh.

Spalding coach Mike Whittles (left) is battling stage four pancreatic cancer and the players, coaches, parents and fans of the team have rallied around their coach for the last 13 years.

"I think everyone gets a purple ribbon that comes in, just to make people aware of it," Whittles, 57, said. "Frankly, my life got turned upside down when I got diagnosed. Everything changed.

"People shouldn't have to go through this. You shouldn't find out you have pancreatic cancer at stage three or stage four. Nobody finds out they have stage one pancreatic cancer and there's something wrong with that. It's always in the latter stages and that's why there's such a high mortality rate."

Continue reading "Spalding football to raise money for pancreatic cancer research" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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In eight years as Westminster football coach, Brad Wilson has enjoyed plenty of success. His 2005 team reached the state Class 4A title game before falling to Gwynn Park, 20-14, in double overtime. The Owls finished that year with the No. 2 ranking, and Wilson was the All-Metro Coach of the Year.

Friday night, the Owls pulled off a win that Wilson said ranks "up there" with the highlights of his career as they upset Linganore, which was ranked No. 9 in the state, 32-31. That win came after a disappointing 48-14 loss to Urbana the previous week.

Wilson, 51, coached at Glen Burnie, North County and Meade before arriving at Westminster, which also made the playoffs in 2008. His Owls (2-1) head into Carroll County competition Friday night at North Carroll at 7 p.m.

As this week's Coachspeak guest, Wilson answered five questions about the Lingnaore win and the rest of the season.

How does this win over Linganore rank in your tenure at Westminster?

We’ve had some big wins. The first couple years, we did beat Urbana, did beat Linganore in a playoff game. We did get to the state championship game in 2005 and lost in double overtime and we’ve had some big wins since then, but Friday night was a big win as far as Frederick County schools have had a lot of success against Carroll County. It was good for Carroll County. It was good for Westminster High School, good for our players. I would say it’s up there. When you do this for 30 years and you try to get high school kids to believe in not only themselves individually but as a group, you teach one common goal. To see a group come together and have one common goal and work toward it, it’s refreshing to see.

Continue reading "Coachspeak: Westminster football's Brad Wilson" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Patterson Mill's Deonte Alston runs during a recent game against C. Milton Wright. Patterson Mill currently holds the top spot in Class 2A East, according to the latest MPSSAA point standings. (Photo by Patuxent Publishing)

There's no question it's too early for the MPSSAA football points standings to mean a whole lot, but some teams scored valuable non-league wins that should pay off at the end of the season as more bonus points accumulate.

After three weeks, 13 Baltimore area public school teams remain undefeated, but only eight are in first place in their regions. Most of the state's 16 regions have only two or three unbeaten teams left, but the Class 2A East teams did particularly well in their early games, with six teams still sporting a 0 in the L column (Patterson Mill, Fallston and Joppatowne, along with Queen Anne's, Kent County and Wicomico).

Here are the local teams holding top spots:

Poly in Class 4A North
Old Mill in Class 4A East
Milford Mill in Class 3A North
Hammond in Class 3A East
Edmondson in Class 2A North
Glenelg in Class 2A South
Patterson Mill in Class 2A East
Overlea in Class 1A North

Continue reading "8 locals atop Week 3 regional football standings" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Nothing near the top changed this week in the ESPN High School Maryland football state media poll, but a few new teams -- including Atholton and Archbishop Spalding -- broke into the Top 25.

Atholton jumped all the way to No. 17 after its 14-0 win over then-No. 10 River Hill. The Hawks dropped to No. 24 with the loss. Spalding came in at No. 21 after beating unranked Mount St. Joseph, 34-31.

Good Counsel still reigns, followed by Gilman at No. 2 and Calvert Hall at No. 3. Arundel is No. 6 with Dunbar at No. 12; McDonogh, 14; Old Mill, 15; Poly, 16; Loyola, 19; and Hammond, 20.

Surprisingly, Westminster did not crack the Top 25 despite its 32-31 victory over then-No. 9 Linganore, which dropped out of the poll.

To see the full rankings, visit ESPN HS Maryland.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 1:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Calvert Hall's 28-27 win over Red Lion, Del. Friday night on Da'Quan Davis' blocked extra point gave the Cardinals a boost in this week's ESPN HS East regional rankings. They jumped from No. 18 to No. 13 as the Lions, No. 13 the previous week, dropped to No. 20.

The Cardinals still trail Gilman, the top Baltimore area team in the regional poll. The Greyhounds went from No. 10 to No. 8 this week despite having the weekend off.

Don Bosco, N.J., remains No. 1 with Good Counsel, No. 2.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 8:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Football
        

The weather finally settled down, but not much else did during a third week of high school football punctuated by upsets, including Westminster over Linganore and Atholton over River Hill. Here are some of the numbers that stood out from this week's action:

0
Points allowed by Atholton in its last two games against River Hill

1
Blocked extra point by Calvert Hall’s Da’Quan Davis to preserve a 28-27 win over Red Lion, Del.

2
Wins this season for Digital Harbor – double last season’s total

2
First downs for River Hill in its 14-0 loss to Atholton

4
Touchdowns scored by Lavon Chaney in South River’s 42-28 upset of Broadneck

4
Big plays by Dunbar’s Aaron Haynes – two interceptions and two touchdowns – in an 18-6 win over City

5
Touchdown passes thrown by Westminster quarterback Rommie Cheese in the 32-31 stunner over Linganore

6
Top 15 teams remaining unbeaten – Calvert Hall, Old Mill, Arundel, Archbishop Spalding, Poly and Hammond

Continue reading "Football By the Numbers -- Week 3" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 6:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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After only the third week of competition, the number of undefeated football teams has dwindled quickly. If you look at the standings in four of the public school leagues that have begun play in Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Howard counties and Baltimore City, you’ll find some new faces atop the leader boards and a few familiar powers missing.

In Howard County, only Hammond and Glenelg are 3-0. While Hammond’s spot at the top isn’t surprising given that the Bears shared the county title with River Hill last season, Glenelg is there thanks to a forfeit win over Atholton in the season opener. The Raiders won that game 39-0 on the field, but forfeited because of a summer practice violation. The forfeit win may have been a gift to the Gladiators, but they proved they’re staying in the race with an impressive 28-8 win Friday over defending state Class 3A champ Wilde Lake (1-2). The forfeit leaves Atholton 2-1, but it’s becoming a distant memory thanks to Friday’s 14-0 win over River Hill.

Dunbar knows a little about Atholton’s pain, although the Poets brought their forfeit loss on themselves when they cleared the bench to mix it up with Dunbar (D.C.) two weeks ago at the I-95 Kickoff Classic at Morgan State. The Poets forfeited last week’s game to Southwestern (it wasn’t played), ending the defending state Class 1A champs' 13-game winning streak. They bounced back Saturday with a defense-driven 18-6 win over City. In Baltimore City’s Division I, Poly and Edmondson are the only teams left unbeaten. That will whittle down to one after the two square off Saturday at 6 p.m. at Mervo.

Continue reading "Unbeaten football ranks already thinning" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 1:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The third weekend of high school football ran without weather disruption for a change. Here are the local results for the weekend:

Aberdeen 24, Elkton 17
Annapolis Area Christian 56, John Carroll 18
Arundel 28, Meade 12
Atholton 14, River Hill 0
Brunswick 67, North Carroll 14
Calvert Hall 28, Red Lion, Del. 27
Catonsville 35, Woodlawn 15
Catoctin 36, FSK 0
Chesapeake-AA 35, Southern-AA 26
Curley 32, Owings Mills 6
C. Milton Wright 13, North East 6
Delmar, Del. 35, St. Frances 0
Dunbar 18, City 6
Du Bois 14, Lake Clifton 6
Eastern Tech 47, Kenwood 14
Edmondson 18, Douglass 8
Fallston 34, Rising Sun 26
Forest Park 14, Lewis 12
Franklin 24, Hereford 19
Glenelg 28, Wilde Lake 8
Hammond 34, Centennial 7

Continue reading "Week 3: Local football results" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Here is a look at how The Baltimore Sun's Top 15 football teams fared this weekend, and who's up next:

Ranking/Team/Record/Latest result/Next opponent/
1. Gilman/2-1/Did not play/At Georgetown Prep, Fri./
2. Calvert Hall/3-0/Def. Red Lion Christian (Del.) 28-27/Vs. Coolidge (D.C.), Sat./
3. River Hill/2-1/Lost to Atholton 14-0/At Hammond, Fri./
4. Old Mill/3-0/Def. North County 67-0/ Vs. Northeast, Fri./
5. McDonogh2-1/Def. Boys’ Latin 31-0/At Spalding, Fri./
6. Arundel/3-0/Def. Meade 28-12/Vs. South River, Fri./
7. Dunbar/2-1/Def. City 18-6/At Mervo, Fri./
8. Archbishop Spalding/3-0/Def. Mount St. Joseph 34-31/Vs. McDonogh, Fri./
9. Poly/3-0/Def. Digital Harbor 20-6/Vs. Edmondson, Sat./
10. Loyola/1-1/Did not play/Vs. Maryland Christian, Fri./
11. Atholton/2-1/Def. River Hill 14-0./Vs. Reservoir, Fri./
12. Hammond/3-0/Def. Centennial 34-7/Vs. River Hill, Fri./
13. Broadneck/1-2/Lost to South River 42-28/Vs. Glen Burnie, Fri./
14. Wilde Lake/1-2/Lost to Glenelg 28-8/At Marriotts Ridge, Fri./
15. Franklin/2-1/Def. Hereford 24-19/At Catonsville, Fri./

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Calvert Hall linebacker Delando Johnson and his teammates celebrate a 28-27 win over Delaware power Red Lion Friday night. It was the Cardinals' first night game since adding permanent lights in the offseason.

High school football scores from throughout the state on Friday night:

Albert Einstein 49, Rockville 6

Annapolis Area Christian 56, John Carroll 18

Arundel 28, Meade 12

Atholton 14, River Hill 0

Avalon 64, St. John's Catholic Prep 32

Boonsboro 36, South Hagerstown 28

Brunswick 67, North Carroll 14

Bullis 35, The Potomac School, Va. 7

Calvert Hall 28, Red Lion, Del. 27

Catonsville 35, Woodlawn 15

Chesapeake-AA 35, Southern-AA 26

Clear Spring 34, Hancock 6

Curley 32, Owings Mills 6

Damascus 49, Wootton 12

Delmar, Del. 35, St. Frances 0

Eastern Tech 47, Kenwood 14

Continue reading "Friday's statewide high school football scores" »

Posted by David Selig at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Brian Van Deusen has been one of the area’s most successful football coaches since he took over the River Hill program from his father, Don Van Deusen, in 2000. Under the younger Van Deusen, the Hawks have won two state championships, five regional championships and eight straight Howard County championships (sharing it last season with Hammond). They had a run of 48 straight county wins before Atholton ended the streak last fall.

Van Deusen, the 2007 All-Metro Coach of the Year, graduated from Atholton in 1992 and was the Howard County Player of the Year in football and baseball. A quarterback, he went on to play football at Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College) in Westminster.

With a rematch looming Friday night at home against Atholton -- their first meeting since the Raiders’ 10-0 victory in October -- Van Deusen, 37, has guided his team to a 2-0 start. As this week’s football Coachspeak guest, we asked Van Deusen to answer five questions about being a coach’s son, the success of his program and the quick turn-around after beating Long Reach, 35-14, on Monday.

Did you always want to be a football coach, growing up watching your dad coach?

Yeah, I think I always wanted to be a coach. Actually, baseball was probably my favorite sport growing up. I wasn’t very big. In high school my freshman year, I was about 5-foot-2 and 92 pounds. I actually didn’t play football until my 9th grade year and went on and did pretty well my senior year in high school and went on to play at Western Maryland. Early on, I was thinking I was more interested in baseball, but getting to college and having that experience, at that point was the time I realized I wanted to be a teacher and a coach. Growing up with my dad coaching at Atholton – he was coaching football, basketball and baseball in the 80s – if I wanted to see my dad, I had to go up to school. In the spring, I was the bat boy and in the fall, I was the ball boy, so that was my chance to hang out with my dad and the guys at school. It was a great experience. There were several great coaches I had at Atholton and a lot of stuff I do today is because of the coaches I had over there.

Continue reading "Coachspeak: River Hill football's Brian Van Deusen" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Gilman's football team held onto a spot in the ESPN High School EAST Region Top 20 poll this week with the No. 9 berth while Calvert Hall moved in at No. 18.

The Greyhounds slipped from No. 5 in the East to No. 9 after losing to Good Counsel, 26-21. Good Counsel held onto the No. 2 spot behind Don Bosco Prep, of Ramsey N.J., which is also the No. 1 team in the nationwide ESPN HS Powerade Fab 50.

Calvert Hall was unranked last week, but its 18-0 win over DeMatha banished the Stags from the regional poll and put the Cardinals at No. 18. The Cardinals' opponent at home Friday night, Red Lion Christian, Del., is ranked No. 13, holding that spot after a 41-6 win over Annapolis Area Christian Saturday.

No other Maryland teams made the East poll this week. To see which other teams made the cut, check out all the regional rankings at ESPN HS.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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We Brown and Good Counsel remain on top of Malcolm Powers and Gilman in the ESPN HS state rankings after Saturday's 26-21 victory in Annapolis. (Doug Kapustin/Baltimore Sun)

Gilman's football team remained No. 2 behind Good Counsel in this week's ESPN HS Maryland High School Football State Media Poll. The top rankings were decided on the field last week as Good Counsel defeated Gilman, 26-21, in the Patriot Classic.

Calvert Hall, however is creeping up on the Greyhounds, pulling to within three points after an 18-0 defensive gem over DeMatha at the Patriot Classic.

DeMatha dropped from No. 4 to No. 7.

The Greyhounds and the Cardinals could determine the No. 2 and No. 3 rankings on the field when they meet at Gilman on Oct. 7.

Continue reading "Gilman football stays No. 2 in statewide poll" »

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Atholton's Kenny Thomas changes direction to evade Howard's Andrew Young during Monday's 28-7 Raiders victory. (Nate Pesce/Patuxent Publishing)

Here are the local football scores from games played Monday due to weather-related postponements:

Aberdeen 50, Bohemia Manor 12
Atholton 28, Howard 7
Digital Harbor 35, Patterson 34
Elkton 21, Bel Air 12
Fallston 15, Edgewood 6
Glenelg 34, Centennial 0
Hammond 38, Mount Hebron 7
Joppatowne 14, North East 6
North Harford 44, Rising Sun 7
Patterson Mill 9, C. Milton Wright 3
Perryville 34, Havre de Grace 14
Reservoir 49, Marriotts Ridge 6
River Hill 35, Long Reach 14
Tower Hill (Del.) 20, Harford Tech 19
Wilde Lake 40, Oakland Mills 7

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The football game between Patterson and Digital Harbor will pick up where it left off today at 3 p.m. at Poly.

Digital Harbor is leading the Clippers, 21-14, with 8:01 left in the third quarter with Patterson about to punt. Saturday night's game was suspended due to lightning.

The Rams, who finished 1-9 last season and were beaten 64-20 by the Clippers last season, are 1-0 and looking to pull the upset. The Clippers, Class 4A regional finalists last season, will have their quarterback Craig Oliver, who had not been expected to play after suffering bruised ribs in the first half Saturday night.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Gilman's football team dropped out of the ESPN High School Powerade Fab 50 rankings this week after Saturday night's 26-21 loss to Good Counsel.

The Greyhounds, ranked No. 1 in The Baltimore Sun, are 2-1 and still listed among the teams receiving votes. Last week, they were ranked No. 42, having moved up from No. 50 in the preseason poll.

Good Counsel jumped from No. 11 in the Fab 50 to No. 9 after the win at the Patriot Classic at Navy-Marine Corps Stadium in Annapolis. The Falcons are the only Maryland team in the Fab 50, which has Don Bosco Prep from Ramsey, N.J. ranked No. 1.

To check out the rest of the Fab 50, go to ESPNHS.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Digital Harbor football coach Keith Rudolph was not too happy about the lightning that kept flashing in the distance during the Rams’ football game Saturday night against Patterson at Poly’s stadium.

The Rams had a 21-14 lead with 8:01 left in the third quarter when the game was suspended. Patterson was about to punt on “fourth-and-a-mile” as Rudolph put it, but the lightning would not stop.

With a rule in place that requires a 20-minutes wait after you see lightning or hear thunder, the teams waited about 45 minutes before the game had to be suspended.

Rudolph and Patterson coach Corey Johnson said the lights at Poly are on a timer that automatically shuts them off at 10 p.m., so there wasn’t enough time left to finish the game. The game will be resumed Monday at Poly at a time yet to be finalized.

“It was extremely tough (to have the game suspended), because Patterson is a great team … and we just wanted to get this one,” said Rudolph, whose team finished 1-9 last season while the Clippers were Class 4A North regional finalists.

“We wanted to wait it out, but the lights go out at 10 o’clock, so it was just one of those things. We had to call it. At that point, I just wanted to get the game over with. I thought our kids had the momentum and that we could pull it out. You never know what’s going to happen Monday. We have a lot of respect for Patterson.”

Continue reading "Digital Harbor edging Patterson in suspended football game" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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This has been one of the strangest weeks in recent high school football memory -- with two teams forfeiting games for infractions and a whole slate of games being postponed by last week's rains, some to be played on Monday. Still, there were plenty of numbers that stood out from weekend action. Here's a look at some of them:

0
Points allowed by Poly in its opening two games

0.03
Seconds left on the clock when Maryland Christian’s Josiah Avery kicked a field goal to edge Boys’ Latin 16-15

2
Touchdown passes thrown by City back-up quarterback T. Robinson in the second half of the 40-0 win over Douglass

2
One-point wins for Southern in its first two games, including Friday’s 25-24 nail-biter over South River

2
Teams -- Dunbar and Northwestern -- enduring forfeit losses for previous rules infractions.

2:50
Left in the game when Good Counsel stopped Gilman’s Cyrus Jones on fourth-and-1 from the 6-yard line to all but seal a 26-21 Falcons win

3
Passing touchdowns from Tyree Turner to Erik Kerns in Meade’s 45-25 win over Annapolis

Continue reading "Football By the Numbers -- Week 2" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The second weekend of high school football was disrupted by all of last week's rain with Harford and Howard county games being moved to Monday. Here are the local results for the rest of Week 2:

Archbishop Curley 13, Chesapeake-BC 12
Arundel 53, Northeast 0
Boonsboro 57, Manchester Valley 14
Broadneck 34, Chesapeake-AA 7
Calvert Hall 18, DeMatha 0
Catonsville 32, Perry Hall 23
Century 26, Oakdale 20
City 40, Douglass 0
Delmar, Del. 40, Dundalk 7
Edmondson 36, Mervo 8
Franklin 13, Eastern Tech 2
Forest Park 26, Du Bois 14
Forestville 20, Randallstown 18
Good Counsel 26, Gilman 21Hereford 42, Woodlawn 0
John Carroll 29, Dulaney 22
Loyola 26, Valley Forge, Pa. 14
Lutheran 40, Loch Raven 13
Maret, D.C. 47, Friends 2
Maryland Christian 16, Boys’ Latin 15
McDonogh 20, Archbishop Carroll, Pa. 7
Meade 45, Annapolis 25
Milford Mill 56, Kenwood 0
National Academy by fft. over Northwestern
North County 13, Glen Burnie 6
Old Mill 34, Severna Park 16
Overlea 24, New Town 18
Owings Mills 24, Sparrows Point 21 (OT)
Patuxent 21, South Carroll 14
Pikesville 22, Lansdowne 6
Pius X, Pa. 53, Mt. Carmel 15
Poly 32, Carver 0
Red Lion, Del. 41, Annapolis Area Christian 6
Reginald F. Lewis 26, Masonville Cove 6
St. Paul's 47, Western Tech 14
Severn 31, Pallotti 6
Smithsburg 14, North Carroll 0
S. Hagerstown 19, Francis Scott Key 0
Southern-AA 25, South River 24
Southwestern by fft. over Dunbar
St. Mary’s 46, Patapsco 6
Thomas Johnson 40, Liberty 10
Tuscarora 35, Winters Mill 10
Urbana 48, Westminster 14

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Here is a look at how The Baltimore Sun's Top 15 football teams fared in the first full weekend of action. Also included, a look forward to whom they play next weekend. Because all Howard County games were postponed Friday and moved to Monday, their last results are a week old.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Dunbar's No. 4 football team had to forfeit Saturday's game against Southwestern as a consequence of a bench-clearing brawl that broke out in the final minutes of last weekend's game against Dunbar, D.C. at the I-95 Kickoff Classic at Morgan State.

Poets coach Lawrence Smith (right) said every player who leaves the bench in a situation like that receives a one-game suspension and too many players were suspended to field a team.

The incident happened with just under five minutes left in the Kickoff Classic game. Smith said the Poets had recovered an onside kick when an opposing player made a blind-side hit on one of the Poets. A Poets player retaliated, Smith said, and "there was a lot of pushing and shoving and it got totally out of hand."

Fans also ran onto the field and the game was called at that point The Poets took a 22-8 victory, but the game cost them what likely would have been a victory over Baltimore City foe Southwestern.

Continue reading "Dunbar football forced to forfeit Southwestern game" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Catonsville's football team got off to a hot start last weekend, using a big second half to beat MIAA B Conference contender Boys’ Latin, 27-6. That sets veteran coach Rich Hambor’s Comets up for a tough five-game stretch in Baltimore County’s 4A-3A Division, beginning with Perry Hall at home Friday night.

The Comets have reached the regional playoffs four times in Hambor’s eight years as coach, including last fall when they fell to North Harford, 15-6, in the Class 3A North region semifinal to complete a 7-4 season. This season, for the first time in Hambor's tenure, the Comets move up to Class 4A North with some new foes, including Baltimore City’s Poly, Carroll County’s Westminster and Montgomery County’s Sherwood.

An Ohio native, Hambor has been at Catonsville for 15 years and was the offensive coordinator before taking over as head coach eight years ago. He was an assistant coach at Randallstown for three years before that.

As this week’s football Coachspeak guest, we asked Hambor to answer five questions about his team, this season and Mother Nature.

What were some of the highlights of the win over Boys’ Latin and how big a win was that to open the season?

We really like to try to get that first win. It really gets the whole school year off on a good note. I think the highlight of that night was that it was a 7-6 game at halftime -- we had a turnover inside our own five yard-line to give them that touchdown -- and that at halftime our guys were believing in the system and they felt like, "We’re just going to play these whole four quarters and things are going to work out.” We scored 20 points in the fourth quarter which is just a matter of continuing to do what we do and not really making any adjustments, just having faith in the system. We’ve always been a pretty heavily run-oriented team and we mix in the pass occasionally. Our philosophy is go three or four yards at a time and drive down the field and hopefully if we get a 10- or 15-yard play here or there, it will help us out and that’s what we did against Boys’ Latin. We had a couple big plays, but for the most part were we trying to get some sustained drives.

Continue reading "Coachspeak: Catonsville football coach Rich Hambor" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Gilman's football team rose to No. 42 in this week's ESPN High School Powerade Fab 50 national high school football poll.

The Greyhounds' 51-27 victory over Oscar Smith, from Chesapeake, Va., in Friday's I-95 Kickoff Classic, boosted them from No. 47 to 42.

This weekend, the Greyhounds (2-0) have a shot at making a big move in the poll when they take on Good Counsel in the Patriot Classic at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis Saturday night at 7:30. The Falcons moved from No. 19 to No. 11 in the Fab 50 after a double-overtime 24-17 win Friday over Manatee, from Bradenton, Fla.

Last season, the Greyhounds defeated Good Counsel, 28-7, in the Kickoff Classic.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 5:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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City coach George Petrides (left) and Eastern Tech's Marc Mesaros agreed to cancel their football game last Friday because so much practice time was wiped out by the weather.

The message boards lit up all weekend with opinions about whether officials at City and Eastern Tech were right to cancel Friday night's season-opening football game scheduled for CCBC-Essex, but both athletic directors stand by the decision to forgo the non-league contest for safety reasons.

Having only two days to prepare after four days without any practice at all just wasn’t enough time to get the players sufficiently ready for a football game, the coaches – City’s George Petrides and Eastern Tech’s Marc Mesaros – believed, so they opted to call off the game rather than risk injury.

“It was mutually agreed upon,” Petrides, also the Knights' athletic director, said. “The bottom line is we did what we thought was best for the kids. It was a situation where a lot of pulled muscles could occur and kids could be out for two or three weeks. Do you want that in a non-league game?”

Mesaros referred inquiries to athletic director Dave Scrivener, who said he agreed with the decision.

“It looks bad now, because everyone else did play,” Scrivener said, “but we were concerned with the health of our kids, not just how it could affect them for one game, but the ways that it could affect them for the rest of the year. Neither coach felt the necessity to play the game. Both felt, physically, their kids could be in jeopardy and no one wanted to get anyone hurt.”

Continue reading "City, Eastern officials stand by football cancellation" »

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 2:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Gilman quarterback Shane Cockerille runs for a touchdown last week against Oscar Smith. The Greyhounds are ranked No. 2 in the state by ESPN this week, and they face No. 1 Good Counsel on Saturday. (Steve Ruark for The Baltimore Sun)

Good Counsel remains No. 1 and Gilman, No. 2 in this week's ESPNHS Maryland High School Football State Poll. The Greyhounds take their shot at the top spot Saturday night when they play Good Counsel in the Patriot Classic at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis.

To see which other Baltimore area teams landed in this week's Top 25, check out the new poll at ESPN High School.

Posted by Katherine Dunn at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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