The Starting Five

High School — Well, it’s Rivalry Week as Week 10 of the prep football season is here. Can’t believe it. We’ll have our preview sories during the week in print and online. Was at North Hagerstown for some quotes and on the way back saw some lights on at St. Maria Goretti’s Gael Center. Stopped in and there were the Gaels in their season-opening practice session. Yep, it won’t be long for hoops action.
It starts Nov. 23-24 with the Lions Classic at Broadfording Christian Academy for both the boys and girls. The first-night matchups are the same for the boys and girls — St. Maria Goretti plays Faith Christian and Saint James plays Broadfording. It all starts at 3:30 with the first girls game. And then there is the MAIT at Goretti on Nov. 27-28. The first night, a loaded Good Counsel faces Benedictine (Richmond, Va.) and will be followed by the Goretti-John Carroll game.

(continue reading…)

Don’t know if anyone saw this one from this past weekend. In West Virginia, Parkersburg South and Wheeling Park had a long battle that went 2 overtimes with plenty of scoring. What a night for the players, coaches, fans and scorekeepers.
The Game 77-71

I don’t get out to many high school football games these days.
I spend most football Fridays in the office, holding down the fort and putting the sports section together with colleague Dan Kauffman.
The last high school football game I went to was on Sept. 1, 2006, when I witnessed Cumberland Valley’s 45-0 beatdown of my alma mater, Chambersburg, in David Carruthers’ debut as Trojans coach.
Carruthers — a coaching legend in Maryland — must have wondered what he was getting himself into with Chambersburg in the tough-as-nails Mid-Penn Commonwealth Division.

(continue reading…)

Andrea Grier is having some success at Marshall University on the golf course.

Here is her latest ……Andrea Grier
Grier, a redshirt senior, had her second top 10 finish on the year. In the same tournament were two freshmen from the area.
Smithsburg’s Haeun Lee and Mercersburg Academy’s Caroline Lovette were in the tournament.
Lee shot 159 for two rounds to help her Longwood University team to a second-place finish. Maybe she has changed her first name. According to the university website, she now goes by ‘Ha’.
Lovette is at the University of Richmond and was the medalist with a 2-over par 146.

Okay, it’s not that Clear Spring just beat Linganore …. but tonight was a big night for the Blazers.

They have beaten Rappahannock County (Va.) 51-0 for their third win of the season.

It’s the first three-win season for the Blazers in their 6th year; it’s their first-ever victory at home; it’s their first-ever shutout.

And, the 51 points give the Blazers 141 points scored this year, more than the 123 total combined from 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Prognosticators? Right now the report card on Mark Keller, Bob Parasiliti and myself might not get a passing grade. If you refer back to my Sept. 1 blog, you’ll see how we predicted the Washington County teams would finish. Some of those numbers have taken a hit.

Williamsport was predicted to win 3 games for the year; halfway thru the season they are 4-1.

South Hagerstown we predicted anywhere from 5-5 to 7-3 and right now they are 1-4 and tunless they turn a new leaf, could go anywhere from 3-7 to 1-9.

Boonsboro we suggested would be 6-4 and they are 2-3, but I think there is a good possibility of the Warriors still reaching that mark. So we’ll hold off on that one right now.

The same for North Hagerstown, at 2-3 right now. The Hubs have two tough road games in front of them at Walkersville and Middletown. We thought they would be anywhere from 5-5 to 6-4.

And we were on the money with Smithsburg (ugh, tighten the rope around the neck) when we suggested the Leopards would be anywhere from 2-8 to 4-6. Already with 3 wins, there should have been a fourth against South Carroll. There could be at least 3 wins in the second half of the season which would give them a 6-4 record.

We thought Hancock and Clear Spring would each win 2 games. Hancock has 3 so far and Clear Spring has 2. I now think each team has the chance of winning 2 more games apiece.

We haven’t backed up our prognostication too well … thus far.

Maybe Ralph Friedgen spent too much time losing weight and not going after home state football players.

After he ran for over 200 yards against Middletown this past week, Linganore’s Zack Zwinak gave Penn State University a verbal OK for 2010.

Zwinak is a 6-foot-1, 230-pounder that can run with speed and catch the football. He is the No. 1 rated fullback and it looks as though he’s going to settle in with the Nittany Lions.

Big Ten football is good for Zwinak, but he must not be good enough for the Terps. Ho hum.

A baseball fan came into The Herald-Mail today as I was leaving and he had a question to resolve a $10 bet. He wondered who the first player was that played Little League baseball and made it to the Major Leagues.

That player would be pitcher Joey Jay, who pitched for the Milwaukee Braves, Cincinnati Reds and Atlanta Braves.

He wondered about former Oriole Boog Powell. Powell was one of two players that played in the Little League World Series in 1954. Powell played for Lakeland, Florida and eventually played in the 1966 World Series. The other was Jim Barbieri, who played for Schenectady, N.Y. and also played in the ‘66 World Series.

So, I guess I wonder who has what part of the winning $10 bet.

Joey Jay

In golf lingo, it is now a snowman’s worth of titles for golfers from Waynesboro, Pa. That’s an 8!
Chad Bricker did it again on Sunday, turning a seven-stroke deficit from Saturday into a five-stroke victory on Sunday with a mistake-free 7-under-par 65.
It was his third WACO Championship at Beaver Creek and the second time he fashioned a beauty on the second round — he fired a 63 in 2006. (continue reading…)

The first 5K Race for the Nation last August would have been an excellent race even had Billy Mills not been the master of ceremonies.
But Mills’ presence made it a main event.
Mills — who famously won the 10,000-meter run at the 1964 Olympics — will be back this Saturday morning, Aug. 15, for the second edition of the race.
On Friday, Aug. 14, he also for the second year in a row will be speaking at Chambersburg Area Middle School from 6-7 p.m. His talk is open to the public and free of charge.
If you can’t attend both events, try to make it to one. American sports legends don’t pass through our area every week.
I haven’t spoken to Mills this year about his trip. But we chatted quite a bit last year.
The story I wrote last year about him coming to Chambersburg is here. My blog post about our phone conversation is here. And here is what I wrote after about his inspirational speech the night before the race.
The race Web site is here.
Below is a photo of Mills and my young son Walker after last year’s race.

(continue reading…)