Danny Hultzen

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April 19, 2006

St. Albans’ pitchers go deep — way deep

By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

Matt Petros/The Current

Georgetown Day junior Joe Bubar, left, caught, pitched and hit a go-ahead grand-slam Friday when his team upset Maret.

Bubar, GDS baseball stun Maret

By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

Nobody expects Georgetown Day’s baseball team to get a win over Maret — let alone a comeback win. And nobody expects junior infielder Joe Bubar to hit home runs — let alone clutch home GDS runs.

So much for those expectations.

After his team fell Maret behind by as many as 10 runs early in the game Friday, Bubar rocketed a fifth-inning grand slam — his first home run of the season — that put the Mighty Hoppers ahead all the way to a historic 16-15 victory over Maret.

“I’m more of a singles guy,” Bubar said. “That was just like, the best feeling ever. I wasn’t expecting it.”

Neither was Georgetown Day coach Pete Robinson.

“Who knew? Who knew Joe Bubar’s going to hit a grand slam?” he said laughing. “I’m glad he did.”

Making the story of his grand slam even more compelling was

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that Bubar started the game at catcher — the first time he had played that position in high school — and pitched two innings in relief.

“He’s a workhorse,” Robinson said.

Before Bubar’s clutch at-bat, Maret had blown the game wide open after the first three-and-a-half innings.

Maret sophomore Liam Duffy, starting at pitcher for the first time in his career, threw three strikeouts in three hitless innings. The Frogs (42, 2-2 Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference) knocked out four home runs and led 11-1 after batting in the top of the fourth inning.

That’s when Robinson dispensed some of his own brand of inspiration.

“My philosophy? I get mad,” he said. “And they know that.”

It seemed to work.

“We felt bad because we felt like we were letting [our coach] down, like we weren’t living up to our expectations,” said junior Gabe Rust-Tierney, who as the starting pitcher got rocked by the Maret bats but came back to score four RBIs. “We were just able to focus in and

bounce back.”

In the bottom of the fourth, Georgetown Day (3-6, 2-4) loaded the bases. Matt Bradley hit a single to left field, bringing Eli Blum in from second to score.

Nick Efron then singled and eventually made his way around the bases, thanks to a walk and two errors by the Frogs. With the threerun fourth inning, the comeback was on.

“This game keeps you honest,” Maret coach Antoine Williams said.

“You’ve got to do the right things out there and make the plays, of course. Towards the end of the game, we didn’t make enough plays.”

Georgetown Day did make enough plays, but just barely.

Maret sophomore Sam Mulroy launched a two-run home run in the seventh inning to cut Georgetown Day’s lead to 16-13. The Frogs scored twice more to cut it to one.

But, with the tying run at third and the go-ahead run at second, senior Josh Idaszak grounded out to first.

That prompted winning Georgetown Day pitcher Matt See GDS/Page 14

St. Albans sophomore Danny Hultzen is usually overshadowed by his better-known teammates on the mound.

His counterparts are bound for Division I college programs next year. Clay Bartlett is headed for Columbia University, Will Krasne will go to Stanford University, and Jeremiah Meiners plans to enroll at Coastal Carolina University.

Before they go, the threesome is making St. Albans one of the toughest rotations in the area to hit.

Nevertheless, the Bulldogs have made room for one more hurler.

Hultzen exemplified the depth of the Bulldogs’ acclaimed pitching staff Saturday. He fired off seven strikeouts and allowed only one run in just over five innings to win 5-3 over Avalon at SatterleeHenderson Field.

Then, after coach David Baad called the left-hander off for a rest, another sophomore, Francis Burke, excelled in relief to preserve the win.

“There’s always been a lot of

Matt Petros/The Current

Sophomore Danny Hultzen complements St. Albans’ strong senior pitching. hype about Jeremiah and Will,” Hultzen said. “But me and Francis both being sophomores, we can be the future.”

It was Hultzen’s first start and second appearance on the mound this season. He gives the Bulldogs See St. Albans/Page 14

Maret gives nothing to Sidwell

By IAN THOMS Current Staff Writer

Before the top of the softball game’s fifth inning Friday, Sidwell coach Ann Ellen asked her Maret counterpart the grade level of his new pitcher. When she got her answer — a freshman — she just shook her head and chuckled.

The question came after another young Maret hurler had thoroughly confused Ellen’s batters for the game’s first four innings.

Sophomore Janie Abernethy held Sidwell scoreless and allowed just four hits before she moved to second base in the fifth inning.

Taking over on Maret the mound was the freshman, Lauren Becker. And her situaSidwell tion could not have been better, thanks to Abernethy and the Maret hitters, who had set her up with a 10-0 See Maret/Page 14

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Bill Petros/The Current

Junior Rachel Profit puts the tag down on a Sidwell baserunner.

She also hit a triple in the game.

14 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 2006

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From Page 13 Tannenbaum to leap off the mound, pump his arms in the air and run toward Blum at first base to celebrate.

The Mighty Hoppers had attempted a similar comeback three days earlier against St. Andrew’s.

They rallied after trailing by six runs but still came up short in an 11-10 loss.

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ST. ALBANS From Page 13 variety at the position, which is currently dominated by the power-pitching seniors.

“Danny’s a great pitcher,” Meiners said. “He’s got the best changeup on the team. He has the best pickoff move I’ve ever seen. He’s got good stuff.”

So far, the Bulldogs and their pitchers seem to be living up to their lofty expectations. Before Tuesday’s game, they were 7-3, and each of the losses has been by just one run. Two of those came last week in an Interstate Athletic Conference series with Georgetown Prep, the Bulldogs’ biggest threat to defending their title.

The Little Hoyas scored on a late error to beat the Bulldogs 3-2 Thursday. Two days earlier, Georgetown Prep won 5-4 on a sixth-inning single.

Losses like those can be frustrating, but St. Albans,

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have coached Maret’s junior varsity team, and he couldn’t think of a win.

Neither could assistant coach Jeff Trembley, who has been there for six years. And Williams had been on the winning side in each of his eight years with the Frogs.

This time, though, Robinson did not seem ready to forget anything — particularly Bubar’s surprising heroics.

“I’m never going to forget that,” Robinson said. “I’m going to take that one to my grave.”

which lost a grueling evening season opener 1-0 at McLean, seems to thrive off the tense atmosphere.

The Little Hoyas beat the Bulldogs once last season, handing them their only conference loss of the spring.

Even though the history of last year is on St. Albans’ side, dates with Georgetown Prep are a whole different ballgame.

The Bulldogs likely will get one more crack at their rivals in the conference tournament in mid-May. Meiners said there will be little room for error the third time around against Georgetown Prep, whose lineup is full of experienced players who make opponents pay for mistakes. The bats will also have to back up the pitching, he added.

“We pitched well, we fielded well,” Meiners said of last week’s games against Georgetown Prep. “We just need to get more timely hitting. We just haven’t been doing a whole lot of that this year. But our bats are starting to come around.”

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MARET

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“This time,” Bubar said, “we wanted to get over the hump and win it.”

Nobody at Westland Middle School in Bethesda — Georgetown Day’s home field during construction on its campus — knew exactly when Georgetown Day last beat Maret, the two-time defending MidAtlantic Athletic Conference champion, but people on both teams knew each program well.

Robinson has been at Georgetown Day for two years after

Best Time to Call

lead. The mercy rule was poised to take effect if she could prevent a run.

While she had room to err, Becker opted to use the opportunity to showcase her skills. She struck out Sidwell’s second, third and fourth hitters in three straight atbats. It took just 11 pitches.

Friday’s 10-0 win kept Maret

undefeated through four games this season, but more importantly it showed that the Frogs can muster both the firepower and pitching necessary to compete with the best of the Independent School League’s upper division.

“They’re playing confidently right now,” said Maret coach Tim Emerson. “It’s a good group. And they’re doing really well.”

The Frogs hope their confidence will stick around after they travel to play other league leaders National

PERCHLORATE From Page 1 spokesperson, Shawn M. Walleck, said on Tuesday that the issue will be addressed at a meeting of the cleanup partners next week.

The issue was raised by James Collier, one-time head of the Health Department’s Bureau of Environmental Quality, who testified before the council’s Committee on Public Works and the Environment at a hearing last Wednesday. He said the Dalecarlia Water Treatment Plant and the new assisted-living center at Sibley Hospital, which is nearby, are both “sitting on a plume of perchlorate” that threatens the public’s health.

Perchlorate is both naturally occurring and manmade. It is an acidic salt used in explosives and as a rocket fuel that can lead to thyroid disease in adults and developmental problems in infants and children. It is mentioned in lists of chemicals used in the U.S. Army’s chemical-warfare program at American University in 1917 and 1918.

The toxicity of perchlorate comes down to the intensity of its presence in water and has resulted in a nationwide controversy. On Feb. 18, 2005, the Environmental Protection Agency adopted a drinking water standard of 24.5 parts per billion. According to the agency, anything above that count can be considered a health risk.

That number was quickly criticized as being far too high by private nonprofit health-care associations and some states. Maryland and Massachusetts has adopted perchlorate advisory levels of 1 part per billion, and California has adopted a 6 parts-per-billion level.

The District, according to Hamid Karimi, interim

Cathedral and Georgetown Visitation. First up will be Cathedral on April 25, then Visitation on May 5.

The strength Maret’s pitching rotation showed against Sidwell will need to resurface if the Frogs are going to upend the league powers, as both have been posting big numbers on scoreboards, while holding teams mostly scoreless.

“We’re looking forward to playing them. We’ll just have to wait and see,” said Emerson.

chief of the District’s Bureau of Hazardous Material and Toxic Substances of the Environmental Health Administration, has adopted the higher federal standard.

But groundwater monitoring wells built by the Army show high levels of perchlorate in and around the hospital and the Dalecarlia Reservoir. Levels of 48 and 36 parts per billion were found near the hospital in February. Levels that exceed the federal standard have also been found near the water treatment plant, though officials have stressed there is no danger to the drinking water stored within the reservoir. The highest levels, at 60 and 70 parts per billion, were detected at the same time by two Army monitoring wells on the 4800 block of Glenbrook Road.

The numbers will vary, although for reasons not clearly understood. For example, a perchlorate reading of 54 parts per billion was found at a sump pump at the bottom of an elevator shaft at Sibley in August 2003. On Feb. 10, 2006, the same sump pump turned up a perchlorate level of 24 parts per billion.

Collier, who worked for the city until earlier this year, said in his written testimony that the presence of perchlorate at Sibley “affects all of the citizens of the District of Columbia and is a threat to the drinking water and to the fish and the anglers” who fish in the Potomac.

He called for more monitoring wells near Loughboro Road and Dalecarlia Parkway as well as in an area bounded by Palisades Lane, Watson Street, Loughboro Road and MacArthur Boulevard “to determine if the perchlorate plume is sliding downhill into that valley.”

Others who testified at the hearing, including Steven R. Hirsh of the Environmental Protection Agency said because no one in the city drinks groundwater, “contaminated groundwater does not present a current risk.”

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May 3, 2006

Field Falcons falter late, hold on against Barrie

By IAN THOMS Current Staff Writer

Brown.

She had reason to be bothered. It was largely a lead she had built that was evaporating.

Yashar-Brown scored five of her six goals in the second half.

Her sixth came with just 23 seconds left in the game, giving Field a two-goal advantage.

Barrie added one more goal but ran out of time. Field won 13-12.

With the win, Field improved to 2-5 in the conference this season, good enough for the sixth seed in the tournament, which will begin tomorrow.

After the game, Field coach Chris Lorrain said he was proud of the way his players stepped up in the crunch, but he felt some rust from the weekend showed toward the end. In addition to a game late last week, Field’s prom was held on Saturday.

There were at least a couple of players who seemed unaffected. Rachel Boylan came in late in the first half and was instrumental in providing the saves needed for Field to build its second-half lead. Tara Davis was another standout. A high-energy attacker, she covered the entire field throughout the game, as well as scoring the game’s first goal and delivering an early assist.

Field School junior Campbell Howe was frustrated; forced to observe from the penalty area for the last few minutes of the Monday’s regular-season finale against Barrie, Howe watched as her team’s once-commanding lead slipped steadily away.

Howe had inadvertently whacked an opponent in the face with her lacrosse stick. She knew she had earned the penalField ty, but all the same, she wanted to be on the field.

The Falcons could Barrie have used her, too.

Howe scored three goals in the first half, helping Field earn a first-half lead, which her teammates extended to 12-7 midway through the second half.

But when Howe left for her three-minute penalty, Barrie was already on a 3-0 run, making things slightly more interesting.

The score was 12-9 with just under three minutes to go.

“I trust my team. I thought they had it under control,” said Howe.

Field would test her faith.

It was a game they needed: Field had just one conference win, with the postseason tournament set to start in three days. It was also a game they had in hand: They never trailed in the second half.

And it was a rivalry game.

So, with all that on the line, the Falcons watched in disbelief as the Barrie Mustangs started to chip away at their lead. At the one-minute Matt Petros/The Current mark, the Mustangs scored A late penalty forced Field junior Campbell again, bringing Howe from the game in the closing minutes on them to within Monday. She had scored a hat trick previously. one score of a Field will face either Sandy tie.

Then sophomore Leah Spring or Bowie in the opening round of the Potomac Valley Yashar-Brown got angry.

“When I get angry, I tend to Athletic Conference tournament focus better,” said Yashar- tomorrow.

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Matt Petros/The Current

St. Albans sophomore Matt Grieb reacts to getting hit in the back by a pitch. The pain was shortlived, however, because the play brought home the winning run for St. Albans.

Little man hits big for Bulldogs

By IAN THOMS Current Staff Writer

The smallest guy on the field played the biggest role in St. Albans’ come-from-behind championship-game win in the Northwest Baseball Tournament on Saturday.

St. Albans sophomore Matt Grieb, a 5-foot-4 center fielder, stole three bases in the title game against Maret, blasted a St. Albans home run in the fifth inning that put his team on the board for the Maret first time, and, with the bases loaded in the sixth, took a fastball to his back, bringing home the winning run.

“My back has never felt better,” Grieb said after the game.

While St. Albans won the championship at home in the annual four-team tournament, Wilson and Sidwell battled in the consolation game at Sidwell. As in the title game, the home team won, with Sidwell taking the consolation prize in a 4-3 win.

St. Albans reached the championship with a win over Sidwell Saturday morning. Sidwell surprised St. Albans by taking an early 2-0 lead in the opening game, but the Bulldogs responded, pouring in

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16 runs on their way to a runaway victory.

Against Sidwell, St. Albans sophomore Danny Hultzen pitched a complete game and crushed a grand slam.

The Maret Frogs earned their trip to the title game with an 8-3 win over Wilson Saturday morning.

In only his second time on the mound this season, Maret senior Willie Leibner pitched a complete game, allowing just one walk and three hits in the win over Wilson, according to Maret coach Antoine Williams.

Later on Saturday, against St. Albans, it appeared stellar Maret pitching would be the story again.

Without overpowering batters, Maret junior pitcher Alex Brown induced numerous ground and fly outs, holding St. Albans scoreless through four and two-thirds innings.

But then Grieb walked to the plate with two outs and the bases empty. Up to that point, Grieb had been the only Bulldog to bother Maret. In the first inning, he reached first on a single, then stole second and third. In his next at-bat, he walked and stole second.

After getting no help from his fellow batters in his first two times on base, Grieb took matters into his own hands, sending a 1-0 pitch over

the right-field fence, about 320 feet from home plate.

“I was in a situation where I needed to do something,” Grieb said. “I like being in that situation.”

Grieb was not the only Bulldog to rise to the occasion, though he was the catalyst. In the bottom of the sixth, St. Albans still trailed 31 when sophomore Sam Simons came to bat. He followed Grieb’s lead, swatting a one-run homer over the right-centerfield fence, bringing the Bulldogs to within one run.

After a well-executed hit-andrun play by Francis Brooke, the runner, and Jon Suzich, the hitter, St. Albans had runners at the corners with one out.

Sensing trouble, Maret coach Williams turned the game over to his closer, sophomore Sam Mulroy.

On five pitches, Mulroy struck out the first batter he faced. Seemingly in command, Mulroy induced a grounder down the third-base line, which seemed about to go foul, but the third baseman tried to make a play on the ball, bobbled it, and the St. Albans hitter, Chris Mauro, was safe at first. Mauro also brought home the tying run.

After a walk, the bases were loaded. Then Grieb came to the plate and took the game-winning plunk in his back.

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Northwest Sports

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Bulldogs look for new pitching power IAC Baseball Preview

By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

Last year, it was good news for St. Albans that its top three pitchers were bound for Division I teams.

This year, it means veteran coach David Baad and about a dozen pitching hopefuls have a lot of work to do.

With the departures of Clay Bartlett, Will Krasne and Jeremiah Meiners, St. Albans must rebuild its

BASEBALL From Page 15 nals. Now Roosevelt hopes to build on that and make it to the title game.

“The guys and I have a tremendous relationship, and they all get along very well,” Brito said. “They’re excited about what they can do.”

Six starters, including five seniors, return for the

SOFTBALL From Page 15 Diane Gardner, who had never beaten the Tigers in five years as coach.

Catcher Raven Brooks and shortstop Whitney Simms, both juniors who helped the basketball team to the championship game last month,

entire starting staff. Juniors Francis Brooke and Danny Hultzen put in quality innings last season, so they are the top prospects early in the preseason.

Offense is less of a worry, as two of the Bulldogs’ top hitters, sophomore infielders Sam Simons and Andy Thomas, return. Simons batted .458, and Thomas had 19 RBIs and three home runs.

The Bulldogs also will happily welcome back senior infielder Alex Spiliotes — who missed all of last season with an injury — not only for his bat, but also for his leadership. He will co-captain the team, along with Thomas and senior pitcher/infielder Chris Mauro.

Rough Riders, whose players showed great improvement toward the end of last season, according to Brito.

Senior pitcher Treon Baird, a native of Trinidad, had never played baseball before last year, but he has developed a solid fastball. The bats of senior catcher Miguilin Mesa, Roosevelt’s leading hitter, and senior second baseman Vincent Ramirez also came alive late.

The Coolidge coach could not be reached.

bring a pair of trusty bats to the plate.

But it’s difficult to predict where Roosevelt may be at the end of the season, as Gardner is still trying to fill a few more positions — including pitcher — to field a dozen-girl team.

Coaches from Coolidge and School Without Walls could not be reached.

Baseball DCIAA WEST

PVAC

Field

WIS

Wilson

Walls

Coach: Neil Gibson, 1st season 2006: 9-6, 9-3 Last title: 2004 Key players: Peter Bohm (Sr. CF), Mike Chickinell (Sr. P), Ryan Lowe (Sr. P)

Coach: Tom O’Mara, 5th season 2006: 5-9 Last title: None Key player: Mark Morgan-Gaide (Sr. P/1B), Sean Henderson (Jr. C), Henry LeBard (Jr. C)

Coach: Eddie Saah, 16th season 2006: 19-4, 10-0 Last title: 2006 Key players: Ian Horkley (Sr. P), Joe Shapiro (Sr. C), Andrew Whitener (Jr. SS)

Coach: Toby Madison, 9th season 2006: 13-6, 8-2 Last title: None Key players: Jeremy Byler (Jr. P/SS), Robert Hirt (So. 2B), Oliver Samuel (So. P/SS)

IAC

Roosevelt

St. Albans Coach: David Baad, 17th season 2006: 14-10, 5-5 Last banner: 2005 Key players: Sam Simons (So. IF), Alex Spiliotes (Sr. IF), Andy Thomas (So. IF)

Coach: Ramon Brito, 1st season 2006: 4-8, 3-7 Last title: N/A Key players: Treon Baird (Sr. P), Miguelin Mesa (Sr. C), Vincent Ramirez (Sr. 2B)

Softball PVAC

DCIAA WEST

Burke

WIS

Wilson

Roosevelt

Coach: Daniel Running, 7th season 2006: 11-1-1 Last title: 2003 Key players: Cristina David (Jr. SS), Emma Klingenstein (Jr. 2B), Hanna Schlang (Jr. 3B)

Coach: Mike Kruger, 1st season 2006: 7-6 Last banner: None Key players: Caitlin Nettleton (Jr. C), Mary Sharffenberger (Jr. P)

Coach: Holstein Heyliger, 2nd season 2006: 6-1 Last title: 2000 Key players: Tamika Frazier (Sr. SS), Cheri Gantt (Sr. IF), Alex Golden (Jr. C)

Coach: Diane Gardner, 6th season 2006: Finalist Last title: 1988 Key players: Raven Brooks (Jr. C), Whitney Simms (Jr. SS)

Awards The following Northwest basketball players received all-conference honors: DCIAA West Boys Jarrell Baltimore, Wilson Darin Drakeford, Roosevelt Darrell Person, Coolidge DCIAA West Girls Raven Brooks, Roosevelt Ashley Brown, Roosevelt Ebony Ellis, Coolidge Brittany Hilliard, Roosevelt Taylor Lake, Wilson Whitney Simms, Roosevelt Rashaun Wright, Wilson Coach Tyrone Pittman, Roosevelt

Nicole Krusen, Visitation Allison McDaniel, Visitation MAC Darryl Banks, GDS Ben Dizard, Sidwell Georget Marshall, Sidwell Gabe Rust-Tierney, GDS Jameille Williams, Maret PVAC Boys First Team Jeremy Hanover, Burke Second Team Doug Spetalnick, WIS Third Team Mike Nemeyer, Field

WCAC Boys First Team Cam Johnson, IAC Gonzaga Ryan Dougherty, St. Vlad Moldoveanu, Albans St. John’s Chris Wright, St. ISL A John’s Taylor Baskin, NCS Second Team Max Kenyi, Gonzaga Darian Bridgers, Tyler Thornton, GDS Gonzaga Chantel Christian, Maret WCAC Girls Sally Marx, GDS First Team Grace Mashore, Dominique Bryant, NCS St. John’s Katherine ISL AA DeHenzel, St. Camille Collier, John’s Sidwell Taneisha Harrison, Kristen Haley, St. John’s Visitation Second Team Taylor Hilton, Dymond James, St. Sidwell John’s

Coaches may submit nominations for February’s “Athletes of the Month” through April 6, to sports@currentnewspapers.com.

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St. Albans coaching legend out

■ Baseball: St. Albans 4, Wilson 1

By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

Sports Desk Hockey players needed A new ice hockey team that will compete in the Maryland Scholastic Hockey League in the fall is looking for players among students who will be attending D.C. private high schools next year. Interested boys and girls are invited to a skate-around at the Kettler Capitals IcePlex in Arlington on April 14 at 6:45 p.m. Contact Peter Rizik at 703-676-4300 or rizikk@aol.com for more information.

Coaches may submit nominations for March’s “Athletes of the Month” through Friday to kevinhilgers@currentnewspapers.com.

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April 4, 2007

Hultzen strikes out 15 in victory Last year, St. Albans’ starting pitching rotation boasted three Division I recruits, but this year it doesn’t even include one senior. Danny Hultzen made that an afterthought when he took the mound against Wilson at Friendship Recreation Center on Saturday afternoon.

The junior pitched a complete game and struck out 15 batters — the most by a St. Albans player in five years — to lift the Bulldogs to a 4-1 win over Wilson and a first-place plaque at the Brian Murphy Tournament.

Hultzen missed the mark on only one throw, and it wasn’t a pitch. In the first inning, with Ian Horkley leading off second base for Wilson (52), Hultzen tried to pick him off, but nobody was covering the base. The ball rolled into center field and Horkley scored.

“I was a little rattled, but I tried to battle through and luckily I did,” Hultzen said.

It was a smooth ride the rest of the way. He allowed three hits with no walks and struck out the side in the second and fifth innings, usually relying on his fastball. Along with junior Francis Brooke and sophomore Matt Bowman, Hultzen has given St. Albans a solid new core of pitchers.

“That’s kind of what we were starting to expect out of him,” said St. Albans assistant coach R.J. Johnsen. “He ... throws a lot of strikes, works quickly, and he’s good when he does that. He had a real nice day.”

Andy Longosz backed him up offensively, going 2 for 2 and driving in two runs, including the game-winner in the fourth inning. Brooke (1 for 2) and Kenneth Jee (2 for 3) brought home insurance runs in the sixth inning.

Horkley, who also pitched a full game but

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By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

Matt Petros/The Current

Junior Danny Hultzen winds up against Wilson on Saturday. He allowed three hits and recorded the most strikeouts in a game by a St. Albans pitcher since John Taylor had 20 in 2002. gave up nine hits, including four in the fourth, was the only Wilson player to challenge Hultzen at the plate and was 2 for 3. Joe Shapiro also got a hit in the seventh inning, but Hultzen kept most of the Tigers from even making contact.

In the second inning, with his team down by a run, St. Albans’ Matt Grieb stole second with Longosz at bat, then came home when Longosz made a base hit to center field.

Longosz put the Bulldogs ahead 2-1 in the

fifth inning when he scored Sam Simons from first with a two-out double to left field, where St. Albans sent all but three of its hits.

Wilson prevented any further damage as Rashad Fox chased down Francis Burke’s fly ball deep into center field to end the inning, but the Tigers never found a way around Hultzen.

“If they don’t hit the ball,” said Wilson coach Eddie Saah, “we’re in trouble against good teams.”

Gonzaga wins, but Cadets look improved ■ WCAC boys lacrosse:

Gonzaga 12, St. John’s 6

By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

After a brief hiatus, the old rivalry between Gonzaga and St. John’s may have finally returned to the boys lacrosse field.

The visiting Eagles picked up their second Washington Catholic Athletic Conference win by beating the Cadets 126 on Monday, but it was a major turnaround from when the teams met last spring. That game ended in an 18-5 drubbing by Gonzaga.

“They’ve got a ... storied program,” said new St. John’s

coach Danny Phillips, a former Cadet who helped raise win totals in coaching stints at Quince Orchard and Good Counsel. “[But] our guys didn’t stop fighting today. All four quarters they fought hard.”

Joe Johnson scored three goals, including the gamewinner, and notched an assist, while Sean Dinn helped on a pair of goals and scored one himself to lead Gonzaga (4-4, 2-1), which put 24 shots on St. John’s goalie Peter Falcone.

Pat Baer and John Culver each scored twice.

St. John’s (2-2, 0-2) got two goals from Jaime Kelley, and Evan Damico and Allan Harrington each registered a goal and an assist.

The Cadets, who already have matched last year’s win total, took their only lead seven minutes into the game.

Kelley circled the back of the net before bursting in front of the crease and firing a shot behind his back past Gonzaga goalie Felipe McAlister to put the Cadets up 1-0.

The Eagles followed it up with four unanswered goals to end the quarter by Baer, Culver, Johnson and Conor Kenny.

Gonzaga built its largest lead early in the second half, going ahead 10-3 when Culver rushed the length of the field to score on a St. John’s turnover.

But St. John’s responded to See Lacrosse/Page 16

Head coach Bob Brown will not return to the St. Albans basketball program next season, according to the school.

Brown, who has been with St. Albans since 1972 and completed his 19th season as basketball coach in February, will remain at the school in another position, said athletic director David Baad.

Baad declined to comment further, per school policy on personnel decisions. Brown did not return messages left at his office.

Brown won five Interstate Athletic Conference titles with the basketball team. He took over that job full-time in 1990 after coaching the baseball team to a string of banners in the 1970s and 1980s.

Between the two sports, he won more than 500 games. He also earned Washington Post coach of the year honors in both sports.

But last year was the basketball team’s second-straight losing season as it went 10-15 and 2-8 in the league.

The year before, the Bulldogs went winless in conference play.

Brown was Brown known for getting the most out of his teams regardless of talent. St. Albans won a share of its most recent banner in 2004, when it beat a much larger Georgetown Prep team led by current Georgetown University star Roy Hibbert in the tournament championship game. And in 1993, the team won at DeMatha.

“He was doing things that teams in the IAC should never be able to do,” said former two-sport player Brendan Sullivan, a 1993 graduate.

Brown also ran the Ban the Brick summer league out of St. Albans, where the Martin Gymnasium concession stand is named for him.

The 30-plus-year career gave him an extensive legacy of former assistants and players now coaching in the area, including Baad, Wilson baseball coach and athletic director Eddie Saah, Wilson boys basketball coach Mike Namian and See Brown/Page 16

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Bulldogs roll with defense and pitching ■ IAC baseball:

St. Albans 3, Prep 1

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A year ago, the St. Albans baseball team entered the spring with three Division I pitching prospects, a preseason ranking in The Washington Post and an Interstate Athletic Conference banner to defend.

Now, gone are those pitchers, the hype and the title defense. Yet the Bulldogs find themselves in better position in the banner chase, especially after beating Georgetown Prep 3-1 on Thursday to split the regular-season series with last year’s champions.

“We lost twice last year to them when we were favored to win, so we really needed to come out and beat them this year,” said St. Albans junior Francis Brooke. “We didn’t want to spiral down like we did last year.”

Brooke allowed two hits and a walk and struck out four in seven innings for the Bulldogs (12-1, 4-1), playing around a 15-minute rain

DCIAA From Page 13 leaders in yards and points.

Roosevelt has also joined other schools in tracking its teams online.

It’s a leading user of the Web site DigitalSports DC, which has archived game results and studentproduced stories and photos.

And Namian uses MaxPreps.com to record scores and statistics. It lets players compare their statistics with others nationwide who use the site, and it makes

Matt Petros/The Current

Francis Brooke allowed two hits and walked one as St. Albans won to split the season series with reigning IAC champion Georgetown Prep. delay after facing his first batter.

Junior Danny Hultzen, who lost a 1-0 decision to the Little Hoyas (4-4, 3-1) two days earlier, was 1 for 2 and drove in Matt Bowman on the go-head run in the fifth inning and an insurance run in the seventh.

Both pitchers last year played in the shadow of the Bulldogs’ trio of standouts — Clay Bartlett, Will Krasne and Jeremiah Meiners — but so far they have given this year’s St. Albans squad a name for itself. The team has turned six shutouts and held opponents to a single run five times.

“These guys are juniors, so people don’t know about them,” said

coach David Baad. “But I like these guys just as much. They pitch the ball pretty well.”

St. Albans pounced early on Prep under breezy conditions before the brief rainstorm arrived Thursday. In the first inning, Andy Thomas stole third, then scored on Sam Simons’ short knock down the third-base line.

None of the Bulldogs said it beforehand, but after losing the first half of the two-game series, they knew they had to win the game.

“The reality is, anybody can do the math,” Baad said. “If we had lost this game ... we certainly would have been in a big hole.”

it easier for college coaches to size up potential recruits, Namian said.

However, he added, good record-keeping requires communication and continuity through coaching changes.

That could be improved, Saah said, if athletic directors maintained easily updated computer files of records that would last as coaches come and go, as he does.

But without a system in place to make sure that happens, the league’s history of losing history might repeat itself.

“When I leave,” Chin said of the

records he has been tracking, “I don’t know what they’ll do.”

And that could leave other teams to go the way of the 1961 Coolidge baseball squad, which, by the way, won the championship that year, according to an article in The Washington Post’s archives.

“I hope 10 years from now, everything [Theodore] Roosevelt’s doing doesn’t get pushed under the rug,” said Tyrone Pittman, Roosevelt’s girls basketball coach. “[When] people aren’t around to talk about it, that’s what records are for.”

BASEBALL From Page 13 inning and help Wilson to a 2-0 victory over Maret for first place at the Wilson Invitational.

“I think that was the key play of the game,” Horkley said. “Up to that point, he absolutely ripped it. If he gets a hit right there, we’re tied up.”

Horkley earned his second shutout of the year, striking out 10 and allowing three hits for the Tigers (8-2).

Two were by Mulroy, who nearly put Maret (4-3) on the scoreboard by smashing a shot to the dugout fence in the opposite field in the fourth inning. It would have been a home run if not for the sure fielding of Wilson left fielder Kreston Shirley, who held Mulroy to a triple.

When Mulroy came up again, Horkley was showing signs of wearing down. He had just hit Willis Bradwell, then walked Alex Kirby, and they were at first and third as the Frogs’ biggest bat arrived at the plate. But Horkley retired Mulroy by mixing up his attack.

“The third time up I didn’t throw him anything straight, and that seemed to work out,” Horkley said.

“Because he was absolutely pounding it the first few times.”

Wilson scored what ended up being the game-winning run in the second inning when Luke Koczela’s double to center field off Maret starter Walter Albee brought Rashad Fox home.

Liam Duffy relieved Albee to start the third inning and finished the game with five strikeouts and four hits.

But in the fifth inning, Wilson’s Joe Shapiro knocked a base hit to center field that scored Horkley from second to add another run to their lead over the Frogs, who made three errors.

“We pitched well enough, but the errors cost us at critical situations,” Maret coach Antoine Williams said.

Horkley made few mistakes, walking one and hitting one in what coach Eddie Saah said was his best performance of the season. He was overthrowing in his last start, a 4-1 loss to St. Albans on April 7, Saah said, but this time all went smoothly.

“Today he had much better control,” Saah said.

The coach in the opposite dugout had a similar evaluation of the pitcher.

“Today,” Williams said, “Ian Horkley was the man.”

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May 2, 2007

Sports Desk Three schools make coach hires, two others looking Maret, St. Albans and Wilson have found new basketball coaches, and Sidwell and St. John’s are looking for new ones.

Duane Simpkins, the former Sidwell boys coach, is headed to St. Albans, and Kalin Taylor, the former Maret junior varsity coach, will take the reins of the Frogs’ varsity team. At Wilson, history teacher Jim Leonard replaced Mike Namian, and at St. John’s, girls coach Eddie Simpson has stepped down for personal reasons.

Simpkins, a former point guard at DeMatha and the University of Maryland, got his first head-coaching job with the Quakers two years ago. They were 35-19 under his watch and captured their first banner in more than 30 years by winning the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference in February.

Simpkins said he looks forward to the challenge of coaching in the Interstate Athletic Conference, which traditionally has been more competitive than the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference.

“The IAC is a very good conference,” he said. “The talent level is pretty good.”

At St. John’s, Simpson won two Washington Catholic Athletic Conference titles and compiled a 213-58 record in five years as the head coach and two as the co-head coach.

“I just want to be able to do a little bit more [personally] during the basketball season,” he said.

Namian leaves Wilson after three years with the D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association program. Leonard, who has taught at Wilson for seven years and previously coached in his native Upstate New York, takes over the Tigers, who were 10-16 and 5-7 in the league last year.

“We hadn’t made the playoffs ... but we had laid the blocks for a good program,” Namian said.

“Unfortunately it wasn’t to be.”

Simpkins and Taylor will fill the spaces left by the departures of two of the area’s most veteran coaches.

Simpkins replaces Bob Brown, who was released after coaching St. Albans for 20 years. Taylor replaces Butch McAdams, who retired from coaching after nearly 30 years with Maret.

— Kevin Hilgers

Coaches may submit nominations April’s “Athletes of the Month” through Friday to kevinhilgers@currentnewspapers.com.

Frogs clip NCS, then get share of banner ■ ISL AA softball:

Maret 2, NCS 0

By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

Matt Petros/The Current

Maret’s Lauren Becker (above) allowed four hits, struck out nine and scored the winning run on Rachel Profit’s double (right).

Fans gathered behind the backstop, along the first-base line and on the deck above right field for an Independent School League AA Division softball game at Maret on Thursday. They were there to see some of the Northwest’s best pitchers battle in a game with major banner implications — and they didn’t leave disap-

pointed.

National Cathedral’s Alie Kolbe and Maret’s Lauren Becker pitched their teams through four scoreless innings before Rachel Profit’s fifthinning, two-out double drove Becker home to score the winning run in the Frogs’ 2-0 victory.

And after their 11-5 win over defending champion Georgetwon Visitation yesterday, the Frogs (8-1, 7-0) won a share of the banner and can clinch it outright with a win over Holy Child tomorrow.

See Softball/Page 14

St.Albans baseball, lacrosse march into IAC tournaments ■ Baseball:

St. Albans 3, Wilson 0

By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

The St. Albans baseball team had been in the situation before, with Danny Hultzen on the mound and Wilson in the opposite dugout. And just as before, the Bulldogs had just enough offense — and Hultzen had more than adequate pitching — to bring St. Albans the win.

In a rematch of the March 31 game that St. Albans won 4-1, the Bulldogs once again prevailed, beating the Tigers 3-0 to win the Northwest Invitational on Saturday.

Hultzen struck out 17, allowed five hits and hit one batter. He provided his own offensive support, notching two RBIs. Matt Grieb and Andy Longosz hit 2 for 3 as the Bulldogs (19-1)

put eight hits on Paul Young and Andrew Whitener, who pitched for Wilson (15-3).

But the opponent wasn’t the only thing the Bulldogs knew well Saturday. It was the ninth shutout of the year for St. Albans, which has held opponents to 1.4 runs per game — 0.8 in Interstate Athletic Conference games — largely behind the pitching of juniors Hultzen and Francis Brooke. And even in their only loss, they showed a stingy defense in falling to Georgetown Prep 1-0 on April 10.

“We actually had hopes of going undefeated this year,” said senior co-captain Chris Mauro.

“That came to a close when we lost to [Georgetown] Prep, but we’re going to push as hard as we can to finish out the season as best we can.”

All that’s left for St. Albans is a home-and-home series with See Baseball/Page 14

■ IAC lacrosse: Bulldogs

on a roll after 7-1 April

By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

The St. Albans boys lacrosse team entered this season with a few burning questions — including how to regroup the offense after the graduation of second all-time leading scorer Thomas Muldoon.

With four players scoring goals in double-figures this spring, the Bulldogs have come close to answering that question.

They begin the Interstate Athletic Conference tournament Saturday against last-place Episcopal, once again as the third seed. The winner will face second-place Landon, which beat the Bulldogs 10-4 in March.

“We feel like we still have a lot of good lacrosse left in us, but I’m happy with the effort that

these guys have put forth, especially with some of the losses to graduation that we had,” said coach Malcolm Lester, whose team is 11-4 and 3-2 in the conference.

Jack Balaban (18 goals in the 14 games with available statistics), Matt Rawson (16), Ian Moore (15) and Matt Miller (12) have taken charge of the offense, and Greg McKillop, with 8 goals and 11 assists, isn’t far behind.

The team got a rough introduction to league play in the loss at Landon, but after that, Lester retooled the lineup and found new ways to motivate the players, and the wins started coming.

“We just blew things up and started from scratch ... and the players responded,” Lester said.

The Bulldogs won their next seven games, going undefeated in April before falling to defending champion Georgetown Prep on Friday. They won three See Lacrosse/Page 14

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GDS scores often in 1st win ■ ISL A lacrosse:

GDS 16, Maret 12

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All this season, victories and goals have been hard to come by for the Georgetown Day and Maret girls lacrosse teams. So when the teams met Thursday in a battle for second-to-last place in the Independent School League A Division, at least one of those trends was bound to give.

For a change, both teams seemed to score with relative ease.

But it was the Hoppers who earned the victory, cushioning a one-goal lead early in the second half and getting nine goals from Cori Solomon to beat the visiting Frogs 16-12.

The blistering scoring didn’t end with Solomon. Brittany

SOFTBALL From Page 13 Kolbe struck out 12 and allowed four hits, one earned run and a walk. Becker had nine strikeouts and gave up four hits with one walk as she handed the Eagles their first loss.

“At the beginning I got a little nervous,” Becker said. “But then as I got into it, I got more used to it and relaxed.”

The sophomore, who was on the losing end of last year’s 1-0, nine-inning game at Cathedral (7-1, 5-1), retired 12 of the last 13 Eagles batters she faced.

She and Kolbe made their way in and out of tough situa-

Wilbon added five goals for the Hoppers (1-5, 1-3), and Maimai Dorn scored seven to lead Maret (0-6, 0-4), which also got three goals from Jenny Bush.

A shootout might have been expected, with both teams relying on young goaltenders and lacking experienced defenses. And to hinder that end of the field even more, both teams brought back only two seniors apiece from last year.

The key for the Hoppers was their work in the final minutes.

Maggie Craig scored with 3 minutes, 14 seconds left to bring the Frogs within four.

But Georgetown Day didn’t give up possession after that play until the final seconds, keeping Maret off the scoreboard the rest of the game.

“It did seem like whoever had the ball in that game and executed at the end was going to win it,” said Georgetown Day coach Kathy tions unscathed for nearly five innings. Only one out into the game, Becker had runners at second and third with Cathedral slugger Meg Krasne at bat. But Krasne whiffed on her third strike, as did the next batter, Christina Larson, and the Frogs made it out of the inning.

Kolbe dug her way out of the third inning by striking out Annie Sloan, leaving two Maret runners in scoring position.

And she had almost finished off the Frogs in the fifth inning before she gave up a pair of game-changing hits. With two outs, Becker sent a double into left field. Kolbe then had Profit, the next Maret batter, down to her final strike. But she pum-

BASEBALL From Page 13 last-place Bullis this week and a double-header on Saturday at Mercersburg. The Bulldogs will enter the league tournament on Tuesday with hopes of their first banner in two years.

The team’s mastery of offensive-minded Wilson this season has been particularly impressive. Just hours before falling to St. Albans, the Tigers ripped Maret 153 in five innings, using an 11-run second inning to shut down the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference team.

Hultzen escaped near-disaster in the opening inning against Wilson. With one out, Ian Horkley and Whitener

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league games in the stretch, including a 5-4 overtime win over Bullis and a 7-2 win over St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes, which gave Prep its closest league game of the year.

“We finally sort of hit our stride,” said senior co-captain Ian Crumley, who anchors the defense in front of junior goalie Guy van Syckle. “Our offense is really play-

Matt Petros/The Current

Georgetown Day’s Cori Solomon (left) scored nine goals Thursday.

Hudson.

For the Hoppers, whose previous best output in a game this season was six goals, it was a victory in both the standings and their minds.

“I’m very excited,” Hudson said. “Offensively we’ve been struggling, so that’s really nice to score 16.” meled the ball into center field.

Becker tagged home plate and was welcomed back to the dugout with hugs from her teammates.

“I just wanted to get her in,” Profit said. “I had two strikes on me, and I just wanted to get it out of the infield.”

Then came Janie Abernethy.

She hit the ball down the firstbase line, and it skipped past the glove of Cathedral’s Aislinn Toohey, bringing Profit home for the extra run.

“It was the second run I was happy about,” said Maret coach Tim Emerson. “With the first run, they can always score one.

When you get two, it means a lot more than one.”

reached base on back-to-back hits, and Joe Shapiro loaded the bases on an error. But the pitcher responded by striking out Young and Rashad Fox swinging.

In St. Albans’ end of the inning, Longosz doubled, then scored when Hultzen singled to right. That proved to be the difference, as the Tigers came in scoring position only twice the rest of the game.

After twice taking out Wilson, the Bulldogs appear to be one of Northwest’s most formidable teams. There’s no room on the schedule for Washington Catholic Athletic Conference-leading St. John’s, but the players wouldn’t mind challenging either for best in the city.

“We haven’t seen St. John’s,” Mauro said, “but a lot of people on this team think we could possibly be a contender against them.”

ing well.”

So is the defense. Opponents averaged four goals a game against the Bulldogs during the winning streak. And Andrew Rohacik was exceptional in the faceoff circle, where he has come out on top 66 percent of the time this season.

“Whenever you get good goaltending and good faceoff work, you’re in pretty good shape,” Lester said. “And I think [during the winning streak] our goalie and faceoff man really elevated their games.”

St. Albans can look back to a successful April for inspiration when it hosts the Maroon this weekend — although concentrating on the business at hand will be crucial to extend that success into the postseason tournament.

“We’re just going in focusing on ourselves,” Crumley said. “One thing we’ve talked about this year is not [to] worry about the other team, just control what we can control and make ourselves as good as we can make ourselves.”

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Lady Tigers get historic crew victory Before his Wilson girls varsity eight hit the Potomac River in Georgetown for the National Capital Championship Regatta on Saturday, coach Bryan Tylander bypassed his usual Vince Lombardi speech. Instead, he quoted Eleanor Roosevelt — “No one can make you inferior without your consent” — and it seemed to make a huge difference.

The Lady Tigers won the school’s first varsity eight championship in at least a decade in 4 minutes, 52.9 seconds, nearly five seconds ahead of Whitman, which had been undefeated in the area. They also toppled local rivals National Cathedral, which was fourth, and Georgetown Visitation, which was fifth and won last year.

Wilson led from the start, and that gave the District’s only public school team confidence against their better-known opponents.

“At that point the girls started to believe, and they rowed harder than they had ever rowed,” Tylander said.

Wilson had lost to Whitman by five seconds earlier this spring without standout Kathleen O’Keefe. Her return to the boat helped the team more than make up the difference.

In the boys varsity eight final, St. Albans won for the third time in four years, surging ahead of defending champion Whitman by nearly eight seconds. National Cathedral won the girls varsity four title.

— Kevin Hilgers

Maret baseball is back on top ■ MAC

baseball: Maret 14, Sidwell 10

By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

After a wild start that had the Maret and Sidwell baseball teams tied 8-8 heading into the fourth inning Thursday, Frogs coach Antoine Williams told his players to treat the game like a scoreless tie. Sophomore Brian Pourciau listened to that advice, then stepped to the plate and started a whole new ballgame.

See MAC/Page 51

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May 16, 2007

Bulldogs celebrate a banner weekend

Matt Petros (above); Bill Petros (right)/The Current

St. Albans soundly defeated Georgetown Prep to win the IAC baseball championship Friday (above). The next day, Matt Rawson (right) and the Bulldogs beat St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes in double overtime for their first lacrosse title in school history.

■ IAC baseball: Hultzen propells St. Albans past Prep 9-1

By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

St. Albans pitcher Danny Hultzen had only given up one earned run and taken one loss this season. Both were against Georgetown Prep last month. He allowed his second earned run against the Little Hoyas on Friday in the Interstate Athletic Conference tournament championship game, but this time he himself gave the Bulldogs all the run support they needed.

The lefthanded junior ■ BASEBALL: allowed three Baad stepping hits and struck down, but will out nine in six remain AD. innings while Page 14. batting in four runs — including two on his first-inning home run — to help St. Albans win 9-1 and earn its second banner in three seasons.

After the game, Hultzen and a few teammates took the U.S., D.C. and school flags down from the pole in right field. The spectacular all-around performance was all in a day’s work.

“I just come and play,” Hultzen said. “That’s what’s most important.”

It’s true. St. Albans (23-2) allowed more than a run in just six games this season. Hultzen and fellow junior Francis Brooke

provided the Bulldogs with such dominant pitching that just having them at the game is a boost.

“This is easily the best pitching and defense team I’ve ever coached here,” said St. Albans coach David Baad, who is leaving after 17 seasons but will continue as athletic director. “The joke is, my most important job is to make sure that Francis and Danny know what time the game is.”

Prep (14-8) was patient at the plate early, forcing Hultzen to work hard — he left in the sixth inning after throwing more than 100 pitches — and trying to minimize its strikeouts.

The Bulldogs, who scored nine or more runs in five of their last six games, quickly jumped on Prep starter John Murphy.

Hultzen’s home run scored him and Andy Thomas to put St. Albans ahead 2-0 after the first inning. Hultzen added two more on a double to right field in the fifth inning, in which the Bulldogs added five more runs.

Ken Jee hit a home run the following inning to give the Bulldogs a 9-0 lead. They loaded the bases with two outs, and the students began clamoring for one more run to end the game by mercy rule, but Sam Simons flied out to the infield.

See Baseball/Page 51

■ IAC lacrosse: School wins first title, 7-6 in 2OT over Saints

By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

The celebration at St. Albans lasted long after the game ended.

A horde of students lifted the heroes on their shoulders, tearful parents hugged tearful sons and alumni congratulated their old coaches for doing something past Bulldog teams had only dreamed of: winning an Interstate Athletic Conference lacrosse banner.

If the meaning of the game weren’t dramatic enough, the Bulldogs ensured that the action itself was. After leading St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes the whole game, they yielded four goals in the final seven minutes, then made up for it when Jack Balaban caught a pass from Matt Miller and scored in the second overtime to give St. Albans a 7-6 win.

“I just tried to turn and

shoot,” said Balaban, in between breaths and in the middle of the postgame mob. “Everyone played so well. I just got the last goal.”

The Bulldogs placed third to perennial powers Georgetown Prep and Landon in the regular season. But St. Albans (15-4) upset Landon and the Saints (135) upset Prep in the tournament semifinals to set up the unusual final game. The league decides champions based on regular-season and tournament results, and the Bulldogs’ victory was enough to guarantee them a share of the banner.

The team’s outlook might not have looked bright to everyone to start the season, as St. Albans had graduated All-American Thomas Muldoon, the school’s second all-time leading goal scorer. But other players immediately assumed greater responSee Lacrosse/Page 14

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March 26, 2008 ■ Page 13

ATHLETICS IN NORTHWEST WASHINGTON

Sidwell, GDS aiming for AA-OK season ■ ISL

A softball preview

By DAVE O’CONNELL Current Staff Writer

When Sidwell and Georgetown Day’s softball squads play each other on April 4, it will be a showdown between Independent School League A teams with different concepts of “normal.”

Normality for Sidwell through the years has meant having an extra “A” in its league affiliation: The Quakers had spent their entire tenure in the ISL AA league before a 2006 last-place finish earned them a trip to the lower division.

Georgetown Day, on the other hand, has spent most of its existence in ISL A and wouldn’t mind shedding its status quo for the one Sidwell is trying to regain.

If Sidwell does make it back to the upper division, it’s going to do

it with a bang, at least if its first two home games are any indication. The Quakers kicked off the season with a 13-11 victory March 14 over Flint Hill in which they rallied from a 10-6 deficit to win it late. Six days later, they duplicated that run total, but omitted the suspense with a 13-0 blasting of Calverton. Even their road loss to Stone Ridge was not without fireworks: The girls jumped out to a 4-0 second-inning lead before falling, 11-4.

A big part of the offense is senior shortstop Celena Dopart, who had three hits and four RBIs against Flint Hill. “She knows how to work in clutch situations,” said new coach Larc Pickett, who played softball at Howard University. “She’s perfect for that position.”

Another key returning player is senior third baseman Sarah Moser.

“She’s a great hitter,” said Pickett.

Another senior, Morgan Rook, will hold down the fort at first.

“She’s a great asset to the team,” said Pickett. “A good solid player.”

Pitcher Annalisa Quinn was a mighty Quinn against Calverton, allowing one hit and striking out six over the course of the game.

The senior will be the team’s lone hurler this season. “She throws hard, and she’s great,” Pickett said.

Georgetown Day’s season has been somewhat less thrilling, with a 5-4 win over Madeira balanced out by a 6-0 loss to Visitation and a rainout against those patron saints of inclement weather, St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes. Third-year starter Lucy Dana returns to the mound as the Mighty Hoppers look to win their first ISL banner since 1994.

Wilson looks for a repeat

Eight teams, one all-purpose preview!

■ DCIAA

softball preview

By DAVE O’CONNELL Current Staff Writer

■ PVAC/other

schools baseball and softball preview

By DAVE O’CONNELL Current Staff Writer

With all the official previews — for D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association baseball and softball, Washington Catholic Athletic Conference and Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference baseball and both Independent School League softball divisions — out of the way, that can only mean one thing.

It’s time for the Preview of Misfit Teams.

These are the talented squads that don’t quite lend themselves to a straightforward sports preview.

Some, like the St. Albans baseball and St. John’s softball teams, are the sole Northwest representatives of their respective conferences. Others, like the Field baseball and Edmund Burke softball squads, might end up by themselves in the Potomac Valley Athletic Conference this season because Washington International is seriously considering not fielding varsity teams in those sports. Then there’s the Field softball team, which is sticking to just scrimmages for the time being, and finally, the Edmund Burke baseball team, which is a misfit in the sense that it doesn’t actually exist.

First up is the Field baseball team, which knows a little something about non-existence: It lost its entire four-man rotation to graduation last spring after a 104 season. Despite this, the Falcons hung tough for a couple of innings in their season opener last week with 15-time defending DCIAA champ Wilson before falling 12-2, not a bad result for an inexperienced team from a league of smaller schools.

“I was particularly impressed by their aggressive play,” Field coach Neil Gibson said of his players.

“They didn’t seem to care that we were facing one of the top teams in the city — an attitude that will serve

Matt Petros/The Current

Georgetown Day won its season opener over Madeira earlier this month, 5-4. The Hoppers are gunning for their first title since 1994.

Matt Petros/The Current

St. Albans senior Francis Brooke is angling for another IAC banner. us very well come conference play.”

An attitude like that of shortstop Colin Hanrahan will certainly help. The senior earned all-conference honors for his .320 batting average last season and is the team’s only returning regular starter. He’ll be joined near the top of the batting order by the only other Falcon senior, Cal Silcox, and supplemented by juniors like center fielder Alex Roppolo and freshmen like second baseman Casey Feffer. Two sophomores (Toby Kutler and Thomas Grath) and a freshman (Ciaran Walsh) will likely compose the starting rotation, with Grath making things tricky on the substitution end of things with his simultaneous role as starting catcher.

Things get even trickier when one looks at the other PVAC schools. Field’s softball team is in its third season, but it’s not past the point where the girls are ready to play anything other than scrimmages.

Most of the team are ninth-graders or younger, with freshmen Blythe Thomas and Rebecca Bennett handling the bulk of pitching duties and eighth-grader See PVAC/Page 14

With Wilson’s baseball team having won the last 15 D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association championships, fans of the other DCIAA schools have had to console themselves with the thought that at least the softball title could theoretically be theirs.

But that wasn’t the case last year, when the Wilson girls finally shook off their reputation of regular-season success and playoff disappointment by capturing the DCIAA banner, their first since 2000. Even worse for the rest of the league, many of those 2007 Lady Tigers were sophomores and now have two seasons to start building a dynasty of their own.

One such youngster is junior pitcher Kathleen McLain. Wilson coach Holstein Heyliger spells out his name with helpful guides like “‘I’ as in ice,” but that might be a more helpful description of McLain, who got really good at putting batters on the slippery stuff last season. She struck out 14 in the Lady Tigers’ 3-2 extrainning championship win over Theodore Roosevelt and kept 18 of the Lady Riders’ last 21 batters off the bases. “She’s got the full repertoire,” Heyliger said of McLain’s pitching. “She’s a fantastic athlete.” McLain will be hitting in the No. 2 slot, while another junior pitcher, Rachel Bitting,

Matt Petros/The Current

School Without Walls and Roosevelt met in the DCIAA semifinals last season. will bat right behind her.

Three seniors return from last year’s 14-2 squad, including catcher/pitcher Cheri Gantt, whose speed in last year’s title game allowed her to stretch a hit in the gap into a game-tying inside-the-park home run. And while senior Annie Cohen, the girl who drove in the winning run in both that game and the semifinals against McKinley, is forgoing another championship run in favor of being the anyone in “Tennis, anyone?”, Heyliger thinks his bunch has a good shot at repeating. “We play tougher competition than the rest of the league,” he said. “We primarily play Catholic and private schools.”

Roosevelt, on the other hand, sticks to DCIAA competition, but it matches up well when it comes to basketball-playing talent on the diamond. That’s because the Lady Riders have Raven Brooks, one month removed from an appearance in the DCIAA basketball title See DCIAA/Page 14

14 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 2008

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Northwest Sports PVAC From Page 13 Sara Salas batting leadoff. “It’s a challenge, but it’s fun,” said coach Tara Hanlon.

Elsewhere, Washington International’s baseball and softball teams may take a year off from varsity competition this season. As reasons for the possible hiatus, athletic director Tom O’Mara cited the school’s problems in getting permits to use a city field and the general difficulty of sustaining fledgling sports.

Over at Edmund Burke, there will be no joy in Edmund-ville, at least for baseball fans, as the Bengals were once again unable to round up enough bodies to get a

varsity baseball team off the ground. “It was just too tough for all the parents and the kids,” said athletic director Michael McQuaid. An Edmund Burke varsity softball team does exist, however, and it actually had a significant amount of veteran talent last season, with pitcher Emma Klingenstein and seven other juniors forming its nucleus. The big newbie in this bunch? Coach Becky Cummings, who takes over for Daniel Running.

As for the non-PVAC-affiliated schools, their future is a lot less uncertain, especially when it comes to St. Albans. Sure, there’s a new coach, Jason Larocque, who takes over for 17-year veteran David Baad. But Larocque has big-league experience, having

worked in the Boston Red Sox scouting department and served as the team’s bullpen catcher. The Bulldogs lost infielder Alex Spiliotes and pitcher/infielder Chris Mauro to graduation, but with senior Danny Hultzen returning as the team’s ace, their chances of repeating as Interstate Athletic Conference champs look good: The senior gave up just two earned runs last season and had a 0.35 earned-run average. He’ll get some help on the mound from senior Francis Brooke.

Out of the WCAC, the St. John’s softball team looks to put its record back on the right side of .500 and challenge perennial power Bishop O’Connell, which hasn’t lost a WCAC regular season game since the 1999 season.

2 campaign. Both losses came to Wilson.

As for School Without Walls, it’s too bad that cloning technology hasn’t advanced to the point From Page 13 where one can make exact copies of human beings, game, gearing up for them on the mound. Brooks because the Penguins could then simply clone their began last season as a catcher, but coach Diane way to a championship by duplicating junior Kendell Gardner pressed her into Jakubos. “She’s my service as a pitcher to most versatile player,” make up for a lack of coach Elliott Nelson arms on the roster. said of the second-year “She’s a modified starter. “She can pitch, pitcher,” said Gardner. she can catch, she can “She’s never been to a play the infield. She’ll clinic or anything like be doing most of the that. I just needed somepitching for us this seaone to throw the ball son.” across the plate, and Senior Cat Smith will Raven is a natural athbe back to bat leadoff. lete. She catches on to “She’s one of our team everything. I think she’ll leaders,” said Nelson. be good this season.”

She’s also the only senAnother hoopster, ior holdover from a shortstop Whitney team that went 8-1 last Simms, will assume year and fell to cleanup duties, with Roosevelt in the DCIAA Brooks likely hitting s e m i f i n a l s . third. The senior made Nevertheless, Nelson Matt Petros/The Current several key defensive expects his girls to put stops in last year’s With a 14-2 record last year, Wilson won the DCIAA forth a good effort. “Our DCIAA title game and banner, edging Roosevelt in the finals. team is going to be drove in a run. “She’s a competitive,” said good softball player,” said Gardner. “She’s very Nelson. “We’re a hustling team, with a lot of hit-andaggressive, she’s got a strong arm, and she’s a strong run. I think we’re going to get better and better as the hitter.” Junior third baseman Nwanneka Madlkaegbu season progresses.” is the other returning starter from the Lady Riders’ 7The Coolidge coach could not be reached.

DCIAA

Sports Desk Boys lacrosse roundup For a lot of schools, this week is known as spring break, but for opponents of the Gonzaga, St. John’s and St. Albans boys lacrosse teams, it’s also serving as a mercy rule.

The three schools are off to a combined 13-2 start, with Gonzaga perfect at 5-0. The Eagles have ushered in new coach Casey O’Neill’s tenure with great fanfare by winning all four of their games in the Jesuit Lacrosse Classic they cohosted, including a 10-7 victory in the title game over Arizona state champs Brophy Prep.

Throw in a 12-9 win over Jordan HIgh School (N.C.) March 19, and the Eagles have outscored the competition 55-36.

Gonzaga’s Washington Catholic Athletic Conference rival St. John’s finally fell to Owings Mills on Saturday for its first loss, but the 4-1 Cadets have shown an ability to pull out close games, with three of their games having been decided by two goals or less.

As for defending Interstate Athletic Conference champ St. Albans, it has picked up from where it left off last season. The Bulldogs are 4-1, with the latest win a 10-6 overpowering of DeMatha.

St. John’s baseball undefeated The St. John’s baseball team, which was No. 10 in Baseball America’s preseason national rankings, is off to a 6-0 start thanks in part to wins over Stafford, Potomac, Maret and Archbishop Spalding.

The Cadets outscored those last three teams by a combined 38-5, but they also pulled out a close one against Stafford, 2-0.

In that latter game, Hugh Adams pitched five scoreless innings to pick up the win. The team is currently participating in the Anderson Bat National Classic in Anaheim, Calif., where it beat two Golden State teams earlier this week.

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April 23, 2008 ■ Page 13

ATHLETICS IN NORTHWEST WASHINGTON

Tiger takes short road to MLB shortstop

By DAVE O’CONNELL Current Staff Writer

Matt Petros/The Current

Just five years ago, Emmanuel Burriss was fielding grounders for Wilson. He’s still doing that today, but on a larger stage — as the San Francisco Giants’ newest shortstop.

Emmanuel Burriss, a 2003 graduate of Wilson High School and a minor league prospect in the San Francisco Giants organization, was on the cusp of breaking into the big leagues this season.

Then he got the rug pulled out from under him. The manager of his Triple-A Fresno Grizzlies team, Dan Rohn, called Burriss into his office Saturday and delivered devastating news: The 23year old rookie had been demoted to Double-A. “I was furious, but I tried to pretend like I wasn’t,” Burris told MLB.com.

Burris wasn’t mad for long, though, because as it turned out, Rohn was just messing with the prospect. Burris had made the Giants’ major league team.

San Francisco purchased Burriss’ contract Sunday morning, giving the kid a chance to complement fellow rookie Brian Bocock at shortstop less than two years after being picked in the second round of the 2006 draft.

And for good reason. Playing in Single-A and the Arizona Fall

League last season, Burriss led the San Francisco organization with 68 stolen bases and had 105 steals in his first 204 games.

In his first 16 games with the Fresno Grizzlies this season, Burriss batted .258 (16 hits in 62 at-bats) with two extra-base hits, six RBIs, six runs scored and two stolen bases. He had a .281 on-base percentage and .306 slugging percentage.

“Of all the athletes I’ve coached at Wilson, he was the most complete athlete as far as knowledge of the game, speed and base running,” said longtime Wilson baseball coach Eddie Saah. “He was a kid that had excellent baseball instincts — you didn’t have to tell him where to go or what to do.”

In his four years at Wilson, Burriss won four D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association titles and was never on the losing end of a league

game. He still holds the singleseason Wilson record for stolen bases with 29, set in 2002.

Burriss made his debut Sunday against the St. Louis Cardinals and followed that up with his first at-bats Monday night against Arizona. He went 0-for-2, but reached base after being hit by a pitch and helped turn a double play in the Giants’ 4-2 loss.

“It was nuts, man,” Burriss said to MLB.com of his Sunday debut. “Walking down the tunnel, just imagining what it’s going to be like when things get started. Having all the older guys come up and say congratulations to me. Then actually going out to the field and looking around.”

If Burriss holds to his roster spot a few more weeks, he can start imagining something else — his homecoming. The Washington Nationals will host a four-game series with the Giants starting June 6.

St.Albans goes for 20th win today Maret the MAC daddy at 8-0

By DAVE O’CONNELL Current Staff Writer

For St. Albans baseball coach Jason Larocque, the boogeyman isn’t under the bed or in the closet. It’s in Middleburg, Va., where the Bulldogs are scheduled to play host Notre Dame Academy and Gloucester Catholic (N.J.) on May 3.

“I know nothing about either of those teams and when I know nothing about a team, it scares me a bit,” said Larocque.

More likely, it will be Halloween in May for those teams, much as it has been Halloween in March and April for St. Albans’ other haunted foes. The Bulldogs are off to a 19-2 start, with a pair of lopsided wins over Landon last week moving them to a first-place 6-0 in Interstate Athletic Conference play, two games in front of Bullis, whom they’ve swept this season.

How dominant have the St. Albans Bulldogs been? They’ve destroyed their competitors by double-digit margins in nine games, including a three-game stretch last week in which they beat Landon twice and St. Christopher’s (Va.) by a combined 42-3.

Only five games have been decided by two runs or less, with the Bulldogs having to travel to Florida and Richmond to get their two losses (both by a run). All told, St. Albans has outscored its opponents 194-39 and given up two or fewer runs in all but five outings.

This isn’t far off the pace from the 23-2

showing in 2007 that won the Bulldogs their second IAC banner in three seasons, and a big part of that continued success is the pitching of Danny Hultzen. Last year the senior went 7-1 and posted a 0.35 earnedrun average, surrendering just two earned runs in 52 innings. Little has changed this season, with performances like a 15-strikeout blanking of Spalding on April 5 the norm.

“My responsibility in coaching someone that talented is to keep them healthy and keep them challenged,” said Larocque.

Larocque will have only a few more weeks to do that, as Hultzen will graduate in June en route to a spot on the University of Virginia roster and, if his draft cards are played right, a position in a major-league organization. Should that happen, it will merely be a case of trading places: Larocque spent three years in the majors, including the 2005 and 2006 seasons as the Boston Red Sox’s bullpen catcher.

Larocque’s big-league tenure had some magical moments — one memorable June evening, the pitching staff and a few position players surprised him with the gift of a new Ford F-150 to replace his ailing decadeold truck — but when the Red Sox let him go in 2006, Larocque decided that the price of the major leagues just wasn’t right.

“I wanted a more balanced lifestyle,” said Larocque. “I didn’t want to be at the ballpark eight or nine months out of the See St. Albans/Page 14

By DAVE O’CONNELL Current Staff Writer

The surname Albee is commonly associated with D.C.-born playwright Edward Albee.

Walter Albee, on the other hand, is known as a pitcher for a D.C. baseball team, but his pitching stats are every bit as absurd as his namesake’s theatrical works.

The Maret junior has struck out 48 batters in 20 innings for a 1.23 earned-run average, a big reason why the Frogs lead the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference with an 80 mark and are 10-2 overall this season.

“He started a little rough, but he’s been very dominant in his last three starts, to say the least,” said Maret coach Antoine Williams. “His pitches are really finding their mark, and his stats back that up.”

Never was this more evident than against Sidwell on April 10. In a 3-2 win over the Quakers, Albee (3-1) struck out 15 batters in a complete-game performance, giving up just one earned run.

Worse yet for opponents, there’s more where that came from, as Maret has a second ace up its green sleeve in the form of Liam Duffy. The senior is 4-0 with a 2.98 ERA and is batting .433 (up from .422 in 2007) with an on-base percentage of .512.

His best start on the mound came in the

Matt Petros/The Current

Maret pitcher Liam Duffy is 4-0 with a 2.98 ERA this season. The Frogs are 10-2. team’s win over Potomac, with seven strikeouts and one earned run in the completegame effort. Duffy and Albee combined to See Maret/Page 14

14 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 2008

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THE CURRENT

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go 11-4 last season as Maret went 17-5 and won its eighth banner in the last nine seasons.

“Liam is one of our leaders,” said Williams. “For my money, he’s the toughest out in the area as a batter. He’s a great competitor.”

Duffy has struck out only twice, with his best batting performance a 4-for-4 domination of St. Andrew’s in which he smacked two doubles, a triple and a single.

While his batting average would pass as a team-high for most clubs, it’s just the tip of the iceberg for Maret. Catcher Sam Mulroy and junior third baseman Brian Pourciau are the top Frogs this season, with matching .468 batting averages.

Pourciau also leads Maret in a less scientific, though no less important, category.

“He leads our team in clutch hits,” Williams said of the Frogs’ cleanup hitter. One such timely smack of the bat came on April 15, as Pourciau taxed second-place Flint Hill with an early two-out two-RBI double to provide the difference in a 6-4 win. The Frogs have a one-game lead on Flint Hill and will play the Huskies again

May 8, two days before the MAC tournament begins.

As for Mulroy, a team co-captain bound for Princeton, he also doubles as a pitcher, and while he might not be the ace that Albee and Duffy are, he can pitch both left- and right-handed. The ambidextrous amphibian showed off his flexibility in Maret’s 20-2 win Saturday over Georgetown Day, throwing with his left hand to start the game, switching to his right for the middle innings, and then finishing the game as a lefty.

It was the first time in Frogs history a pitcher had pulled off such a feat.

Of course, Mulroy’s pitching might have been the least of Georgetown Day’s worries, given the potency of the Frogs’ offensive attack. Every batter in the lineup got at least one hit, the third time this season they have achieved such perfection. Mulroy, who had seven home runs last season, smashed it out of the park twice, while Pourciau and Duffy both had three hits.

“We had a good approach, and everyone was a tough out,” said Williams.

A similar blowout occurred in the finals of the Landon Tournament earlier this month when Maret

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year, every day. It wasn’t fun. The school environment was something I always liked.”

Opportunity came knocking last year, when St. Albans coach David Baad stepped down after 17 seasons and 12 IAC titles to concentrate on his duties as athletic director. Larocque had gotten to know Baad during his pre-Red Sox stint as a Georgetown University assistant coach and a deal was struck to use Larocque’s advanced baseball knowledge to worsen the already Baad fortunes of St. Albans’ league rivals.

“I’m trying to use all the information that I received while I was in Boston — how people train, how people practice, coaching philosophies — to effectively organize things,” said Larocque.

As a result, pitchers like Francis Brooke (8-1, 2.02 ERA in 2007) are seeing Red every day in practice.

“We had a table of pitch counts that our pitchers followed right up to our first game, so that we didn’t overwhelm them once the season started,” said Larocque. “I’m very proud that our staff has remained healthy.”

But Larocque also knows when to back off, as evidenced by the team’s 17-2 win Thursday over Landon.

“We were down 2-0, and we had made a bunch of errors in the second inning, and I was very close to blowing my gasket,” said Larocque. “I told myself that

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In Maret’s 20-2 win vs. GDS, every batter in the Frogs’ lineup got at least one hit. trounced Landon 16-2, a few hours after handing Wilson its only loss of the season, 7-4.

Maret will close out the week with three games, a pair of rematches with Potomac and St. James today and tomorrow, respectively, and a showdown with the Interstate Athletic Conference-leading St. Albans (19-2) on Saturday in the Northwest Invitational Tournament.

I had to let the players get out of it on their own.”

And they did, as the game quickly shifted from a blown gasket to a blowout. The Bulldogs racked up 16 hits and five walks to complete the regular-season sweep of Landon and then followed it up with a 12-1 drubbing Saturday of St. Christopher’s in which they knocked Boston College-bound ace Charlie McCann from the game in the fourth. Hultzen had 12 strikeouts for the win against St. Christopher’s, with senior third baseman/outfielder John Suzich reeling off three doubles and senior outfielder Matt Grieb chipping in with a double and a single.

“He’s really starting to come around at the plate,” said Larocque of Grieb. “It was a big day for him.”

Another player who is coming into his own is outfielder Buddy Bardenwerper, who is batting in the No. 9 slot. “He’s the guy who gets the runs in for you, whether it’s a routine ground ball to the middle infield for a run or a double down the line,” said Larocque.

“He finds himself in clutch situations and usually gets the job done.”

As for the team, its next job is sweeping the regular-season series with Georgetown Prep, the team responsible for one of its losses last season. In 2007, Prep finished 13-8 overall and 10-2 in the IAC, making it to the championship game. This season, Prep is off to a lukewarm 10-8, 2-3 start, but Larocque isn’t looking past today and tomorrow’s games against the Little Hoyas to the banner.

“They have some pretty good athletes,” said Larocque. “This could be a big week for us.”

son. The senior guard was one of the top 50 scorers in the D.C. area. She will attend Stanford in the fall.

Sidwell baseball beats Potomac Pitcher/infielder Daniel Gerstell fought through an eight-pitch at-bat in the bottom

of the seventh and emerged with a walk-off home run as Sidwell downed Potomac in baseball Thursday, 13-12. The Quakers have won three of their last four games and are 3-4 on the season after a 0-3 start.

Teammate Chris Stack amassed three of Sidwell’s 11 hits in the winning effort.

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WIS girls tennis doubles up on banners Washington International girls tennis won its 11th regular-season Potomac Valley Athletic Conference banner in 13 years last week and followed it up later in the week with a tournament banner, thanks largely to sterling doubles play.

The Red Devils, who finished 8-0 in league play, swept tournament doubles play behind the combo of seniors Natasha Jessen and Luciana Rocha and the duo of senior Chelsea Cole and sophomore Samantha Parks, who both easily defeated tandems from Jewish Day School.

Carolina Ernst picked up Washington International’s singles win.

Visitation continues softball dominance Senior Katie Sowick’s RBI infield groundout in the second inning turned out to be the game-winner as Georgetown Visitation edged out Maret, 2-1, on Wednesday for the Independent School League AA softball tournament crown. The previous week, Visitation won the ISL AA banner, awarded to the regular-season champ.

Freshman Cubs pitcher Katie Kolbe struck out eight and walked none for the win. She fanned 18 Frogs in the teams’ other meeting this season, a 3-2 Visitation win.

Déjà vu in ISL lacrosse Two weeks after eking out a onegoal victory over Episcopal for the Independent School League A girls lacrosse banner, Sidwell did it again, this time for the tournament championship.

Junior Olivia Brown scored three goals as the Quakers roared out to a three-goal halftime lead and held on to win 8-7. Sidwell defeated Episcopal by a 9-8 margin on May 2.

In the ISL AA tournament title game, it was another rematch, as Georgetown Visitation took on St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes in an attempt to avenge a 16-3 loss on May 1 that gave the Saints their 14th banner in a row.

Visitation lost but hung tough with the nationally ranked Saints into the second half before falling, 16-8.

Gonzaga rugby goes National A 55-25 win Saturday over St. Joseph’s Prep (Pa.) gave Gonzaga rugby a No. 4 seed in the USA Rugby High School National Championships, which will take place May 30 and 31.

David Penberthy had a hat trick to lead the Eagles.

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May 21, 2008 ■ Page 11

ATHLETICS IN NORTHWEST WASHINGTON

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Bulldogs put the bite on Saints to win IAC banner ■ IAC baseball

championship: St. Albans 12, SSSA 0

By DAVE O’CONNELL Current Staff Writer

In the case of St. Albans, when it doesn’t rain, they pour on the runs.

The Bulldogs came into Saturday’s Interstate Athletic Conference tournament championship game against St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes having played only one game in the past 14 days, thanks to a series of rainstorms that pounded the D.C. area. But once the clouds cleared and St. Albans took the field, it took the Bulldogs virtually no time to remind everyone which team had cruised to a 27-2 regular-season record and the top seed in the conference tournament.

St. Albans ripped off three runs in the opening stanza, and senior pitcher Danny Hultzen followed that up with the first three of his 11 strikeouts, as the Bulldogs annihilated the Saints at home, 12-0, to win their secondstraight IAC banner.

“It’s the best moment I’ve ever had,” said St. Albans coach Jason Larocque, a former Boston Red Sox bullpen catcher who took over the Bulldogs’ head coaching duties last year when David Baad retired after 17 seasons. “It’s pretty emotional, but I can’t take any credit. The guys have been amazing since the first day of practice.”

Have they ever. The win over the Saints was the Bulldogs’ 11th shutout in 32 tries, their 29th overall on the season, and the 17th in which they put double digits up on the scoreboard. Only once in their 10 regular-sea-

Matt Petros/The Current

St. Albans scored 12 runs on its way to a shutout win over St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes for the IAC banner. The Bulldogs are 30-2, with 10 other shutouts this season. son IAC games, all Bulldog wins, did the opposition lose by less than six runs. Even more impressively, St. Albans picked up win No. 30 just three hours later, defeating Georgetown Day, 7-1, in the Congressional Bank Baseball Classic play-in game behind the efforts of next year’s ace Matt Bowman, who got the nod in place of injured senior Francis Brooke.

Fortunately for the Bulldogs, Brooke’s injury, suffered during the team’s 7-2 win over Landon in the IAC semifinals back on May

13, wasn’t as serious as first believed. “We thought it was a strained ACL, which is an eight-month rehab, but it turned out be a strained PCL ligament in his knee, which is only two weeks,” said Larocque. This means that the Bulldogs may have Brooke back in time for their game against Maret in the Congressional Bank Baseball Classic on May 31. Later that day, the winner of that matchup will take on the public schools champion for city bragging rights.

See St. Albans/Page 12

Sidwell surprises late

Ledder is better for Gonzaga

■ MAC baseball championship:

■ WCAC track

Flint Hill 14, Sidwell 3 (6)

By DAVE O’CONNELL Current Staff Writer

By DAVE O’CONNELL Current Staff Writer

With his two hits and an RBI, Sidwell infielder Chris Stack had the sort of batting performance a guy celebrating his 18th birthday would want.

Unfortunately, when all was said and done, the senior left the field without the birthday present that truly mattered: a Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference championship.

The Quakers hung with Flint Hill into the fourth, but couldn’t keep pace with the Huskies’ bats, falling 14-3 in the conference tournament championship game Thursday.

Flint Hill won a share of the banner the previous Thursday, edging Maret, 3-2. It was Sidwell’s third game in a 27-hour span.

“We’ve played a lot of baseball these past couple days and our guys were tired,” said Sidwell coach John Simon.

Rain postponements the past two weeks pushed back Sidwell’s early-round MAC

championships

Matt Petros/The Current

Sidwell improved on its 8-13 mark in 2007 to post a winning season and a spot in the MAC tournament title game. games to the point where the Quakers wound up playing two rounds of games Wednesday afternoon. Sidwell responded well to the pressure, defeating Potomac, 5-1, in a quarterfinal game resumed from four days earlier and then shocking banner co-winner Maret, 20-6, for a trip to the title game.

See Sidwell/Page 12

Despite the best efforts of Bill Ledder, Gonzaga finished this past weekend’s Washington Catholic Athletic Conference track and field championships at Good Counsel in a familiar position: looking up at DeMatha.

The Eagle sophomore erased a huge deficit as the 4x800-meter relay anchor to get the win and outpaced the pack in the 800 and 1600 runs to help Gonzaga to a thirdplace finish in the Friday and Saturday event with 118 points. DeMatha won the boys banner, its fourth straight, with 158 points.

Ledder began his 4x800 anchor leg about 50 meters behind leader Phil Iwugo of DeMatha, but that turned out to be a mere formality. He passed Good Counsel’s Mark Hamilton on the backstretch of the second lap to move into second, then bore down on Iwugo as the finish line came into view. In See Track/Page 12

12 WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 2008

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DC WASA Hosts Public Meetings on Proposed Rate Increase The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC WASA) is hosting community meetings to discuss a proposed adjustment to water and sewer rates. The Board is considering a rate increase of 8.5 percent for water and sewer services. If approved, the new rate becomes eective October 2008 and would raise the average monthly bill by approximately $4.24 (based on an average monthly usage of 8.33 Ccf or 6,231 gallons of water).

DC WASA WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Please plan to attend any of the following meetings:

As for IAC bragging rights, St. Albans had them from its first at-bat against the Saints (20-6). Bowman and senior catcher Andrew Thomas both singled to lead off the inning, Hultzen walked and all three came home to score in an inning that featured an error, a passed ball and an RBI sacrifice fly to right by senior third baseman Sam Simons. The Bulldogs wound up scoring in every inning, a big improvement over their 1-0 squeaker at St. Stephen’s on April 10. “That first inning was big,� said Larocque. “We moved runners around, we manufactured runs, and the energy kept increasing from there. If we come out a little flat in the first inning, things could be different.�

Instead, St. Stephen’s came out flat and never recovered. Hultzen walked the leadoff batter, who then stole second, but the senior settled down and struck out the next three batters to end the threat. Only three other Saints runners moved into scoring position the rest of the game, while Hultzen fanned 11 batters to give him 138 strikeouts in 73 innings on the season. At the plate, Hultzen had two hits of his own, including an RBI single in the sixth that increased the Bulldogs’ lead to 8-0. “It was a typical Danny Hultzen performance,� said Larocque. “That’s why he’s one of the best pitchers in the area.�

St. Albans got its fourth and fifth runs in the third inning, thanks to an error that scored Hultzen and a single to left center field by senior sec-

Matt Petros/The Current

St. Albans pitcher Danny Hultzen fanned 11 batters vs. SSSA. ond baseman/outfielder Andy Longosz that scored fellow senior John Suzich. Errors in the fourth and fifth brought in runs to make it 7-0, with Bowman’s sacrifice flyout to right in the fourth indirectly bringing home a run from second.

The lead runner tagged up and moved to third, then took off for home when the Saints outfielder neglected to hold him at third and instead threw it back to first in an unsuccessful attempt to double off that runner.

A five-spot in the sixth moved the score to 12-0, with Hultzen, Suzich, Longosz and senior outfielder Matt Grieb driving in runs. If the Bulldogs were feeling rusty after a rainy layoff in which they went 10 days without playing a game at one point, they definitely weren’t showing it. Bowman, Hultzen, Longosz and Grieb all had multihit games. “I told the guys that when you practice out here, this is your release,� said Larocque. “You have academic pressures, you have social

pressures, but when you come out here, whether you’re playing tomorrow or in a month, this is your time to have fun and work hard. These guys have never taken a day off.

Every day they come out here ready to play.�

On Saturday, they came out ready to play a doubleheader, as Friday’s play-in game against Georgetown Day for the Congressional Bank Baseball Classic was rained out along with the oft-postponed IAC finale. The Bulldogs spotted the Mighty Hoppers an early 1-0 lead, tied it in the second with Grieb’s sacrifice RBI, and then pulled away with three in the third, including a tworun homer by Hultzen. Bowman struck out 10 and surrendered four hits in a winning effort, at one point retiring 15 batters in a row.

The Bulldogs will go for the private schools championship against Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference co-champs Maret, who downed Sidwell on Saturday, 9-2.

tion with one out. Senior Alex Fernandez, whose .475 average entering the game was second only to Stack among Quaker batters, grounded into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning, however.

Ratner had the team’s other two RBIs, an infield sacrifice grounder in the first for the team’s only lead and a single to center in the third that paved the way for Stack’s game-tying single. He also had a grand slam against Maret.

That win over Maret gave Sidwell six straight victories after a 4-7 start and some hope of pulling off the upset against Flint Hill, who lost only one game in MAC competition. But the bottom fell out in the bottom of the fourth, when the Huskies parlayed a single, a double, a hit batsman, a walk and two sacri-

fices into a four-run inning. Flint Hill added a run in the fifth and six more in the sixth to invoke the 10run mercy rule. “We had been playing good baseball and not making errors,� said Simon. “Everybody contributed. We just got a little tired.�

Sidwell was unable to bounce back two days later against Maret in the play-in game of the Congressional Bank Baseball Classic, losing 9-2. The Quakers led 2-1 in the third, but Maret put up eight runs in its next three times up to advance to the private schools championship against St. Albans.

Sidwell finished above .500 on the season, a big jump after an 8-13 campaign in 2007 that ended with a semifinal MAC tournament loss to the Huskies.

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Anacostia Senior High School Auditorium 1601 16th Street, SE In addition, DC WASA is hosting public hearings on the proposed rate adjustments 8FEOFTEBZ +VOF t QN BOE .POEBZ +VOF t BN OPPO at Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, 777 North Capitol Street, NE (within walking distance of Union Station).

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SIDWELL From Page 11 Stack stacked up the hits against Maret, going 3 for 4 with two walks and a stolen base as the Quakers (10-9) scored 12 runs in the final two innings to blow the Frogs out of the water. Against Flint Hill (20-8), Stack singled to right in the fourth inning to bring home Zach Ratner and tie the game at 3-3. Stack finished the season with a team-high .492 batting average and .598 onbase percentage. “He’s been a team leader for us,� said Simon. “He’s been having hits all year.�

Stack’s other hit came in the third with Sidwell down 3-1, which helped set up a bases-loaded situa-

TRACK From Page 11 the end, it came down to a fraction of a second, with Ledder finishing just 1/20th of a second ahead of Iwugo for the gold. The team’s final time was 8 minutes, 21.36 seconds to DeMatha’s 8:21.41. Ledder also took home firsts in the 800 and 1600 and received the meet’s most

valuable performer award.

Elsewhere for Gonzaga, Johnson Bademosi won the gold in the long jump with a jump of 20 feet, 10 inches. Teammate Aaron Shepperd joined him at the top with a victory in the 110 hurdles.

Rival St. John’s picked up one win, with Steven Brown taking the high jump title. The boys 4x100 team placed second with a 44.21-second showing in that event.

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May 28, 2008 ■ Page 11

ATHLETICS IN NORTHWEST WASHINGTON

No. 16 sweet for Bulldogs — is city title next?

Sports Desk

By DAVE O’CONNELL

Wilson baseball advances Luke Koczela tied the Wilson baseball school record with his sixth home run of the season as the Tigers destroyed Spingarn, 24-1, in the D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association tournament quarterfinals yesterday.

Koczela had three RBIs on the afternoon, as did senior Andrew Whitener, to help the Tigers (19-5) move closer to their 16th-straight DCIAA banner. They will take on the winner of today’s Bell/Anacostia quarterfinal in Thursday’s semifinals.

Roosevelt lost to McKinley, 13-3, in the other Tuesday quarterfinal involving a Northwest team.

Maret basketball camp Maret will hold a basketball camp June 23 through 27 for girls entering sixth through 10th grades. The camp, headed by Maret girls basketball coach Omar El Maaroufi, will emphasize small-group instruction in team tactics and individual skill development for both novice and experienced players. Specific team concepts that will be emphasized are See Desk/Page 12

Current Staff Writer

In the end, Baseball America, USA Today and the other publications that issue preseason high school baseball rankings got it right: One Northwest D.C. team would be on the national radar screen at the end of the season.

They didn’t get the name of the team right, however.

St. John’s started the season as the media darlings, but three one-run losses in an 10day stretch in April bounced them from the various top 25 rankings, never to return.

Unranked St. Albans, on the other hand, cruised to a 30-2 record, won the Interstate Athletic Conference, and now is ranked in USA Today’s Super 25.

The Bulldogs debuted at No. 16 in the most recent poll, thanks to a May 17 doubleheader in which they defeated St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes, 12-0, for their second-straight IAC title and downed Georgetown Day, 7-1, in their Congressional Bank Baseball Classic playin game. It was their 10th- and 11th-straight wins in a season that saw them sweep through the conference with an undefeated 10-0 regular-season record.

“The guys have been amazing since the first day of practice,” said St. Albans coach Jason Larocque. “Talk about family. I mean tears, pain, everything is here — this is a

Matt Petros/The Current

St. Albans plays Maret in the Congressional Bank Baseball Classic on Saturday for a spot in the city title game later that evening. great team.”

It’s a team so great that four players were named to the IAC All-League team last week, all seniors: catcher Andrew Thomas, third baseman Sam Simons and pitchers

Francis Brooke and Danny Hultzen. As the team has gained national recognition, so has Hultzen, who has received attention at games from scouts and has gone so far as to See Albans/Page 12

Wilson blasts SWW, then waits ... and waits

By DAVE O’CONNELL Current Staff Writer

Matt Petros/The Current

The well-rested Wilson softball team will play its second game in 20 days today.

The Wilson Lady Tigers took the next step toward establishing a softball title run to someday rival their baseball counterparts last Wednesday, trouncing School Without Walls 15-0 to advance to today’s D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association semifinal against H.D. Woodson at Banneker Field.

Today’s game was originally scheduled for yesterday, but it was postponed to make room for DCIAA baseball quarterfinal action that was postponed, not for the first time, from Saturday. The Lady Tigers are looking to repeat as banner winners; the baseball team is looking for its 16th championship in a row (See Sports Desk, this page).

The DCIAA regular-season champion Tigers (10-2)

Gonzaga better than DeMatha

Paz passes PVAC pack in track

By DAVE O’CONNELL Current Staff Writer

Together, they helped Field’s boys basketball team win a banner last winter. On May 13, Imir Paz and Richard Jackson repeated history — this time with the Field track-and-field team.

Paz picked up four first-place finishes, and Jackson chipped in a pair of seconds and a fourth as Field boys won the Potomac Valley Athletic Conference

Championship at Magruder High School in Rockville. The girls team finished third with 58 points.

The two seniors made their presence felt from the first event, with Jackson placing a close second in the 110-meter hurdles, 1/20th of a second in back of Steven Brown of Queen Anne. Paz would avenge his teammate in the next event, the 100-meter dash, putting up a time of 11.48 seconds for the gold. Paz went on to win the 200 and 400 and help win the

scored three runs in the first inning, followed it up with six more in the second and then added three-spots in the third and fourth to cruise to their sixth-straight win. Junior Rachel Bitting went 3-for-4 with a triple and two doubles, scoring three runs and picking up three RBIs. Kathleen McLain also went 3-for-4 with 3 RBIs, stealing four bases in the process. The Tigers stole 13 bases on the afternoon, with Cheri Gantt nabbing four and scoring two runs without getting a hit (she walked twice).

McLain was also a force to be reckoned with on the mound, giving up no runs, two hits and striking out 11 to move to 9-2 on the season. It was the first game for Wilson in two weeks, with its most recent one before that a 3-1 win over defending Independent School League champ Maret on May 7. The championship is on Friday.

By DAVE O’CONNELL Current Staff Writer

Photo courtesy of David Panush

Ollie St. John goes for Burke.

4x100 relay alongside Navid Ghatri, Sam Schear and Ryan Paige.

See Track/Page 12

Sports Illustrated recently named Gonzaga the 18th-best sports program in the nation, one spot ahead of Washington Catholic Athletic Conference rival DeMatha of Hyattsville, Md. And while the magazine didn’t say why it gave the Eagles the edge, it might have had something to do with the flurry of titles a few lesser-known Gonzaga sports programs won this month.

Gonzaga took home league titles in crew, tennis and rugby. The crew squad added a senior-eight petite final win Saturday at the Scholastic Rowing Association of America Nationals to cap off its season, and the rugby team is looking to win the USA Rugby Boys High School Club Championships this weekend in Pittsburgh.

This month’s title binge began on May 10, when Gonzaga crew and rugby won the inaugural See Gonzaga/Page 12

12 WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 2008

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Jackson’s other second came in the triple jump, with a showing of 40 feet. He also finished fourth in the 300 hurdles, with teammate Ghatri coming in third at 45.63 seconds. Ben Heller and Niko DeLeon won silver medals for the Falcons in the 800 and discus throw, respectively.

Northwest teams took the top two spots out of 10 schools in overall boys team scoring, with Edmund Burke’s 76 points second to Field’s 105.

Burke accumulated three firstplace individual finishes, all courtesy of Ollie St. John, and none of them were close. His win in the 3200 was by 6.63 seconds, with teammates Conor Messinger (fourth) and Simon Conrad (sixth) giving Edmund Burke three of the top six. Shorter distances didn’t help his opponents either; he won by wide margins in the 1600 (5.78

Photo courtesy of David Panush

Anja Sherry helped Edmund Burke to a bronze in the 4X400 relay. seconds) and 800 (4.05 seconds).

Burke also won the 4x400 relay, with Jmaw Moses, Sam Gretz, Michael Tulman and Adam Lewis putting up a time of 3 minutes, 41.30 seconds — 3.69 seconds better than St. Anselm’s.

ALBANS From Page 11 deny that he will break his commitment to the University of Virginia and go pro. Hultzen is 12-0 with a 0.74 earned-run average, allowing only six earned runs in 73 innings pitched.

Brooke, a three-sport star, has matched Hultzen nearly stride for stride, posting a 12-0 record of his

GONZAGA From Page 11 championships in their respective leagues. Gonzaga rugby defeated Hyde Public Charter, 27-7, to win the Metro Area Varsity Rugby Conference title, while the Eagles crew team beat out BethesdaChevy Chase by 6 1/2 seconds in the varsity eight to capture the Washington Metropolitan Interscholastic Rowing Association championship. (Gonzaga crew also won the second and third varsity eights, the varsity four and the second freshmen eight.)

A week later, the rugby squad picked up another title, defeating St. Joseph’s Prep (Pa.), 55-25, to win the Mid-Atlantic Rugby Football Union championship on May 17.

The win gave the Eagles a fourth seed in the nationals and a Friday

DESK From Page 11 quick transitions and spacing. The individual skills will be ball handling, passing, shooting, defense and rebounding. Cost is $325, and the hours will be 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Details and applications can be found at maret.org under “Summer Programs.�

Over on the girls side, Field’s 58 points were good for third out of eight schools, with Burke in fifth with 33 points, and a third Northwest school, Washington International, in the sixth slot.

Melanie Ottenstein earned two firsts and a second, with the golds coming in the 3200 (Burke’s Emma Timbers was second) and 1600 (teammates Lindsey Scherer and Vicky Faling were second and fourth, respectively). She also took the silver in the 800. Scherer was fourth in the 3200.

Aside from Timbers’ showing in the 3200, Edmund Burke’s best event was the 4x400 relay, in which Anja Sherry, Mimi Rappaport-Gow, Molly McCabe and Hannah Ceja teamed to place third. Washington International had a pair of third-place finishes, with the 4x100 relay team (Nyasha Harper, Anne Van den Heuvel, Vivian Telgarsky and Aurelia Mohrmann) and Christina Valentine’s efforts in the discus throw standing out.

own and a 1.03 ERA, although he is currently recovering from a PCL injury. Brooke is dominating at the plate as well, hitting .329 with 28 hits and 28 RBIs and scoring 21 runs.

St. Albans will play Maret Saturday at Nationals Park in the private schools championship of the inaugural Congressional Bank Baseball Classic. The winner will take on the public school champ, either Wilson or McKinley, in the nightcap at 7 p.m. That game will be televised on Comcast SportsNet.

date with top-seed St. Thomas (Texas). (These Eagles have won so many titles that not even a single month can contain them: a 52-29 win April 26 over Hyde Public Charter gave them their ninthstraight championship in the Potomac Rugby Union, one of the subdivisions of the Mid-Atlantic Rugby Football Union.)

Earlier that week, Gonzaga tennis won its third WCAC team banner in four years, anchored by singles wins from Paul Mascola, Malik Waleed and Ryan Jenks and a doubles title from Waleed and Jenks.

Mascola’s win was especially dramatic, as he rallied from a 3-1 deficit in the tiebreaker in the No. 4 singles spot to down DeMatha’s Christian Keenum. Waleed and Jenks’ wins were considerably less climactic, coming on 10-5 scores.

The Eagles edged the second-place Stags overall in the May 15 event,

37-32.

Not to be outdone, Gonzaga crew traveled to Oak Ridge, Tenn., last weekend and won the senioreight petite final at the Scholastic Rowing Association of America Nationals on Saturday, posting a winning time of 4 minutes, 35.52 seconds to edge area rival Thomas Jefferson by just under three seconds.

Another Eagles team had a good shot at a banner this month: the golf team. Unfortunately, the Eagles couldn’t put enough eagles on the scoreboard and finished third in the WCAC championships, a year after winning their third straight title.

Other banner-winning Gonzaga teams this school year included the basketball team, which went 34-1 and finished No. 10 in the USA Today Super 25 national rankings, and the soccer and swimming squads.

WCAC’s best honored

eight home runs and 29 RBIs. He scored 44 runs, stole 32 bases, walked 21 times and had an onbase percentage of .600. As a pitcher, he held opposing batters to a .111 batting average in just over 26 innings pitched, striking out 26 and going 2-0 with three saves. Hoes is slated to play at Davidson College in North Carolina.

The fifth area representative was Gonzaga senior Jack Keller, who earned the nod at first base.

Five baseball players from Northwest schools, including four from St. John’s, were named to the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference All-Conference First Team this month. Senior L.J. Hoes earned Player of the Year honors.

Shortstop Jeff Flax, outfielder Josh Leemhuis and designated hitter Scott Silverstein joined Hoes as the first-team delegation for the Cadets. Hoes hit .524 this year with

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Gonzaga rugby finishes sixth in nationals Their season ended with close losses in the USA Rugby Boys High School Club Championships in Pittsburgh on Friday, but the Gonzaga Eagles can boast that they are the sixth-best rugby team in the country.

No. 4-seed Gonzaga lost to topseeded St. Thomas (Texas), 10-7, in its opening game, then dropped a heartbreaking match to Xavier (N.Y.), 22-20, when a conversion kick fell short on the final play of the game.

In that final game, Chris Beauregard, Johnny McMurray and David Penbethy all scored tries.

Roosevelt shines in DCIAA track Roosevelt sprinters Jahmal Waldon and Juashaunna Kelly capped off their careers with superb performances at the D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association track and field championships last month.

Senior Waldon was tops among men, winning the 400-meter title in 50.26 seconds and anchoring the Rough Riders’ winning 4x400 relay team that also included Jamal Johnson, Yannick Beete and Eric Young. Waldon finished second in both the 200 and the 4x100 relay.

On the girls’ side, senior Kelly hit the trifecta with wins in the 400, 800 and 3,200. She attempted to collect a fourth title in the 1,600, but cramped up in the second lap and had to stop.

Breakthrough for Cadets tennis star The third time was the charm for Nobu Tanaka of St. John’s.

The senior had beaten DeMatha’s Zachary Nicholson in the regular season and on the USTA Junior tennis circuit, but had come up short in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference tennis championships against his foe the past two seasons.

Last month, Tanaka broke through, winning five straight games against Nicholson en route to a 10-5 win and the No. 1 singles title, avenging a 106 loss in the finals last year.

“It was a great feeling seeing him win,” said head coach Merritt Johnson. “He was very nervous, but he wanted to win so badly. He faced some tough players, but he played very well and very smart in a hardfought match.”

Tanaka fell behind 3-1 when Nicholson broke his serve, but rallied to win the next five games and eight of the next nine, breaking Nicholson’s See Desk/Page 14

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June 4, 2008 ■ Page 13

ATHLETICS IN NORTHWEST WASHINGTON

Sports Desk

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Wilson No. 1 again ...

■ DCIAA softball:

Wilson 9, Coolidge 0

By DAVE O’CONNELL Current Staff Writer

How perfect was the Wilson softball team’s D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association championship win over Coolidge? The only play the Tigers weren’t able to execute properly was the rundown of coach Holstein Heyliger with the celebratory cooler of Gatorade.

Junior Kathleen McLain pitched a perfect game, and the Tigers scored in all but one inning as Wilson secured its second-straight title in convincing fashion with a 9-0 victory over the Colts.

“We’ve all really worked well together this year,” said McLain. “We always support each other — there’s no putting other people down.”

Maybe not, but the Tigers wasted no time in putting Coolidge down on the scoreboard. Triples by McLain and fellow junior Susann Bernstein in the first two innings set tworun innings into motion as the Tigers amassed a 6-0 lead by the end of the third inning. That was more than enough cushion for McLain, who struck out 16 batters in picking up her 10th win of the season.

“They were trying to bunt a lot, so I threw a lot of screwballs to make them go inside and pop it up,” said McLain.

“They really didn’t get around it at all.”

“She was fantastic,” said Heyliger, who is retiring after 12 years on and off as Wilson manager to, as he puts it, do something besides win titles. “I was deeply, deeply moved.”

In the fifth, Wilson added two more runs on two singles, a hit batsman, a sacrifice and an See Softball/Page 14

Matt Petros/The Current

Wilson pitcher Kathleen McLain picked a perfect time to throw her first perfect game: Friday’s DCIAA championships.

... and again and again as Ba and baseball win

By DAVE O’CONNELL Current Staff Writer

It was a big week for Wilson, and not just because the softball team took home the banner.

Tennis star Arnaud Ba and the Wilson baseball team also continued their dominance, with Ba winning his fourthstraight D.C Interscholastic Athletic Association singles title Saturday and the Tiger baseball team taking home its 16th-straight DCIAA banner with a win yesterday over School Without Walls.

Ba defeated Bell’s Denton Belmar, 6-0, 6-0, in the DCIAA tennis championships at the Takoma Recreation Center to cap off a career in which he lost only one match. The senior, who emigrated from Senegal in 2002, became the second player to win the singles title in all four years, with School Without Walls’ Candace Cunningham the first to do so with her 20032006 championship run. At least another school had a shot at the title this year; Ba defeated teammate Roosevelt Cooper for the title in 2006 and 2007.

Janae Sydnor looked to give Wilson a clean sweep of the singles titles on Saturday, but fell to Tamika Mitchell of Ballou, 61, 6-0. The championships concluded yesterday with double action that took place too late for this edition.

Over on the baseball diamond, things went equally according to plan as Wilson captured its 16th-straight banner, defeating School Without Walls at Banneker, 11-2. The championship game was provisionally scheduled for Saturday’s Congressional Bank

Baseball Classic, as division champs Wilson (22-6) and McKinley were already scheduled to meet in the mid-day game, but the Penguins upset McKinley in Thursday’s DCIAA semifinals, 7-5, necessitating the push back to yesterday.

Either way, it didn’t matter as the Tigers beat both McKinley and Walls by scoring in double-digits.

Against the Penguins, it was a six-run fourth that opened the floodgates, with tournament See Tennis/Page 14

Bulldogs get Classic win ■ Baseball:

St. Albans 6, Wilson 1

By DAVE O’CONNELL Current Staff Writer

Matt Petros/The Current

St. Albans made the most of its first game at Nationals Park, defeating Maret and Wilson to win the inaugural Congressional Bank Baseball Classic.

With aces Danny Hultzen and Francis Brooke graduating this month, pitcher Matt Bowman will be St. Albans’ No. 1 starter next season. As Saturday’s Congressional Bank Baseball Classic title game against Wilson moved along, it became clear why.

Bowman struck out 12 batters and gave up just five hits as

the Bulldogs held off a stubborn Wilson team, 6-1, in the city title game at Nationals Park.

“My slider and my fastball were working really well for me,” said Bowman. “It was locating and it just felt good.”

The junior retired 12 out of 14 batters in the second through fifth innings, picking up 10 strikeouts along the way.

St. Albans had earned a berth in the inaugural title game by defeating Maret in the private schools championship earlier that morning, 4-0, behind Hultzen’s 13 strikeouts. With See Baseball/Page 14

14 WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 2008

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Northwest Sports BASEBALL From Page 13 the wins, the Interstate Athletic Conference banner winners finished 32-2 on the season, good for No. 16 in the USA Today Super 25 national rankings.

Wilson hung with St. Albans into the fifth inning, keeping the Bulldogs off the scoreboard behind David Perez’s pitching, but failing to take advantage of hits by Luke Koczela in the first and third innings.

St. Albans finally knocked Perez out of the game in the fifth with four runs off four hits and three walks. Sam Simons broke the drought with a douMatt Petros/The Current ble that scored Andy Thomas, St. Albans pitcher Matt which was followed Bowman struck out 12 up by a John Suzich against Wilson on Saturday. single and a twoRBI Andy Longosz single to make it 3-0. Suzich came in on a bases-loaded two-out walk by J.D. Alexander to close out the fifth-inning explosion.

Suzich and Matt Grieb would drive in insurance runs in the next inning to seal the deal.

The Tigers’ lone run came in the sixth, with Koczela’s leadoff triple putting him in prime position to come home on Jake Jordan’s grounder single.

Perez threw 106 pitches overall and gave up just four hits in the first four innings.

Brooke, who missed the start for St. Albans due to a PCL knee injury suffered last month, came into the game in the seventh to get the last out.

SOFTBALL From Page 13 error that turned a possible double play into a two-on-with-no-outs situation. Ellen Levine then sacrificed in a run, and Anna Bernstein followed suit with an RBI single to make it 8-0. All told, Wilson had 10 hits and 15 base runners on the night. Even in the one inning in which the Tigers didn’t score, they still managed singles by

serve three times in the process.

Tanaka’s 17-0 record (14-0 in the regular season) helped lead St. John’s to a 10-5 record and third place in the WCAC. Tanaka will attend Longwood University in the fall. Earlier this season, the girls tennis team claimed its second consecutive WCAC title, and improved to 32-0 against conference opponents over the last two seasons.

MVP Andrew Whitener’s basesloaded double the key hit.

Whitener also got the start on the

pionship next year. The Tigers finished 12-2 this year, with wins over Independent School League foes Maret, Sidwell and Georgetown Day, and topped the campaign off by outscoring their competition in the DCIAA tournament 41-1. “We were close up until the last two years, and now we’ve had two perfect years,� said Heyliger. “It’s my hope that they stay together and keep doing the things that they do.�

All-PVAC honors awarded

From Page 13

From Page 13

The game may have been cut short by rain, but it’ll remain in the memories of its Northwest participants for a long time.

Northwest schools were well-represented in Saturday’s truncated Congressional Bank Baseball Classic All-Star Game, with all nine runs in the 6-3 Blue team’s victory over the Red squad either scored or driven in by stars of Northwest schools.

Two Sidwell players drove in runs, with Dan Gerstell bringing home Maret’s Willis Bradwell on a bad-hop grounder to open the scoring in the first and Alex Fernandez’s sacrifice fly driving in Roosevelt’s Carrington Gibson for a 4-0 thirdinning Blue lead.

Fernandez himself scored on a Danny Hultzen sacrifice in the second.

Fresh off his team’s 7-5 upset win over McKinley in the D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association semifinals, School Without Walls’ Brock Brown continued to make his presence felt. Brown had an RBI hit in that game and came up with another one in Saturday’s game, a double that brought in Wilson’s Tim McHugh to give Blue a 3-0 lead.

That lead grew to 6-0 before Red rallied with three runs in the bottom of the fifth. Gonzaga’s Eamon Hanifin drove in Sidwell’s Dylan Roman to get Red on the board. Jeff Flax (St. John’s) then brought home Hanifin for the second run and Flax came across later in the inning to end the scoring.

Terence Hagerty (Wilson) and Jack Keller (Gonzaga) were the starting pitchers. Due to a 90-minute rain delay that pushed back the game’s starting time, the game was called in the middle of sixth so that the city title game could start on time. — David O’Connell

Levine, Cheri Gantt and McLain. “We try to teach them how to hit and how well to hit,� said Heyliger. “We try to make sure they show a lot of patience. They all can hit.�

After that, McLain shut the stable door on the Colts, striking out the side in order twice to end the game. McLain finished the year with an 0.52 earned-run average and is expected to join seven other Tiger juniors in returning for another shot at the DCIAA cham-

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Ten runners from Northwest schools were selected to one of the all-Potomac Valley Athletic Conference teams last month. Ollie St. John and Sam Gretz of Edmund Burke were named to the boys first team, joined by Imir Paz and Richard Jackson of Field. Niko DeLeon and Ben Heller of Field earned second-team boys honors.

Among the girls selected were Field’s Melanie Ottenstein (the lone area first-team representative) and Lindsey Scherer, as well as Anja Sherry and Emma Timbers of Edmund Burke.

mound and made the most of it, giving up three runs and striking out 12 while walking just one.

Senior catcher Jake Jordan went 3for-3 with a walk and 2 RBIs as Wilson won its 127th-straight league game.

And if the middle school championships are any predictor of things to come, Wilson may wind up topping the 20-straight plateau.

Deal Middle School defeated Sousa, 15-5, to take home its own DCIAA title.

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Sports Desk Cubs end on high note

Tigers win swim titles Callie Fosburgh and Christian Ulstrup each won twice Sunday as they both earned most valuable swimmer honors and helped the Wilson boys and girls swim teams to D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association titles at Takoma Aquatic Center.

The Lady Tigers won all their events to top Bell Multicultural, their only opponent, 138-21. The boys team scored 101 points to beat Dunbar (76) and Bell (32).

Fosburgh placed first in the 200yard individual medley (2 minutes, 12.36 seconds) and 100 freestyle (55.81).

Ulstrup took the 200 butterfly (1:13.93) and 500 freestyle (6:33.33).

Olivia Lashe also won multiple events for Wilson, placing first in the 50 freestyle and 100 backstroke.

— Kevin Hilgers

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ATHLETICS IN NORTHWEST WASHINGTON

Only eight players were available for the Georgetown Visitation basketball team when it traveled to Cumberland, Md., for the Bishop Walsh Girls Invitational Tournament last weekend. That didn’t stop the Cubs from capping their best season ever with a huge win.

Visitation topped Holy Cross, the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference runner-up, 77-74, in the fifth-place game at the prestigious Catholic tournament behind doublefigure scoring from four players.

“It’s one of the biggest wins we’ve ever had, if not the biggest,” said coach Mike McCarthy.

Freshman Maddy Williams led the abridged lineup with 20 points, and Bridget Coakley added 19 points and four steals. Freshman Kate Gillespie compiled 14 points and 10 rebounds, and junior Kristen Haley added 10 points and 11 rebounds.

The Cubs went 2-1 at the tournament, their only loss coming 57-52 in the opening round to eventual winner Seton Keough of Baltimore, the Independent Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference champion.

Visitation (29-5) matched last year’s win total, a school record, but the Cubs were even more pleased with this season, considering their schedule outside the Independent School League AA Division, which they swept for the third year in a row.

The Cubs went 3-2 against the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference and beat Maryland Class 3A semifinalist Largo and Seton Keough in December. They also faced H.D. Woodson, the City Title winner.

“I knew on paper this was the best team we’ve ever had, and I think we proved it,” McCarthy said.

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■ Baseball preview

By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

Matt Petros/The Current

David Perez is one of only four seniors for Wilson, which must adjust to a new coach for the first time in 17 seasons.

Just about everything is new for the Wilson baseball program this spring. Assistant coach Eddie Smith has taken over for Eddie Saah, who won 16 D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association titles in 17 seasons, only four seniors are back, and the Tigers could have a real home if the diamond at Fort Reno Park is completed.

Smith, though, has been emphasizing a smooth transition from the Eddie Saah era.

“I told them from Day One nothing’s going to change,” Smith said. “I learned from him the same thing they’re going to learn from me.”

Much of Wilson’s experience will come from senior pitcher David Perez, the Tigers’ returning ace. Other seniors will have to adjust to new roles: Alex Harris will move from left field to center field, and Sid Balman will return to catcher from right field.

The infield is particularly young, though it has shown promise. Ben Whitener, whose brother Andrew now plays for Princeton University, will start at first base and see time on the mound. Sophomore Ciaran Walsh, a transfer from Field, also will pitch, and George Geiger, a transfer from St. Andrew’s, will

play shortstop.

The Tigers will face the usual slate of local private school squads in weekend tournaments, starting with Episcopal, St. Andrew’s and St. Anselm’s in the Wilson Tipoff Classic on March 28. Their schedule also includes the first meeting in several years with Gonzaga, on April 2.

IAC It will be difficult for St. Albans to top last year’s memorable season, when the Bulldogs went 32-2, captured their second consecutive Interstate Athletic Conference banner and won the inaugural D.C. High School Baseball Classic. Twelve seniors graduated from that squad and five are now playing for Division I schools, including ace Danny Hultzen, now the Friday night starter for the University of Virginia.

But there is still talent in the Bulldogs’ program: Their junior varsity team won 40 games over the last two years. Seniors Matt Bowman (Princeton University) and Cameron Philips (Lehigh University) are at the top of the rotation, and junior Christian Sbily will contribute as well. St. Albans will look to two juniors, left fielder Justin Coulter and catcher Duncan Taylor, for their bats.

“Usually we have some good arms year after year,” said coach Jason Larocque. “We just have to See Baseball/Page 12

Visitation looks to underclassmen for ISL run ■ Girls lacrosse preview

By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

It’s never been easy to take on St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes, which has won 14 consecutive Independent School League AA Division lacrosse banners.

Georgetown Visitation gave the powerhouse a run last spring, but the Saints handed the Cubs their only loss.

The Cubs will rely heavily on underclassmen following the graduation of three Division Ibound starters, but second-year coach McNevin Morris said youth could have its benefits.

“It’s a lot of athletic players,”

Morris said. “They have things you can’t teach.”

Senior Meghan McCarthy, who will play for the University of Louisville next season, will anchor the defense after an allconference performance last season. She is one of five returning starters.

The Cubs also will turn to their junior class for strong play. Kylie Kain, their assists leader last season, will return to the attack and Nina Swanson, also a standout for Visitation’s banner-winning basketball team, will be back at center. Lydia Miller, a transfer from Paul VI, will strengthen the defense.

Visitation also will start a freshman in goal, Gen Giblin,

who Morris said has been one of the best young goalkeepers she has seen at the school.

Elsewhere in Northwest The Independent School League A Division could be especially competitive this spring, but Georgetown Day coach Alanna Tievsky said the Mighty Hoppers are capable of improving on last season’s five wins. Seven starters are back and playing with more confidence than they were a year ago.

“I think we’re looking a lot more cohesive, and our skills are looking a lot more sharp,” Tievsky said.

Senior leaders include midfielder Genna Reed and defender

Claire Saba. Whitney Reed is just a freshman but will be a key contributor at center.

Second-year coach Chrissy Yetter is looking to restore competitiveness to St. John’s, her alma mater, which last year didn’t win a game in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference.

This year the Lady Cadets have six seniors but are going to look to their underclassmen to make big plays, too.

“We are definitely looking to cause some upsets in the WCAC this year,” Yetter said.

Among the veteran leaders are senior midfielders Naomi Schware and Kristina Wilson, as well as junior attacker Katherine See Lacrosse/Page 12

12 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 2009

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Dunn. Although St. John’s fields a junior varsity squad, Yetter has entrusted five sophomores and six freshmen on the top team, including freshman midfielder Caty Dee. Sidwell is finally back in the Independent School League AA Division after three years in the A Division.

Randall Goldsborough, who is co-coaching the team with longtime coach Anne Monahan, said the Quakers know they face a steep challenge but hope to make things interesting.

Eight starters are back from last year, including four seniors. Olivia Brown and Lisa Whetstone both return to head the attack, and Amanda Gerber and Taylor Stewart will guide the backfield. The Quakers also will welcome three freshmen with club experience, which is unusual for the program.

Goldsborough said she expects the team to see moments both great and frustrating. But if the team plays together the same way it did to find success in the lower division, she said Sidwell can pick up a few wins even with a tougher schedule. “If we play this year with that same mentality, we’re going to surprise people,� Goldsborough said.

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MAC Change could be coming to the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference: Armed with a veteran lineup of seven seniors and six juniors, Georgetown Day is looking to be one of the league’s top teams.

The road to the title likely must go through Maret and Flint Hill, which shared the banner last season, but the Mighty Hoppers are optimistic about what this spring might hold. Their preseason play showed continuity from solid late-season play last year. “They seem to have gotten it together this year,� said coach Pete Robinson.

The key for Georgetown Day is in the pitching, with three players back on the mound: Senior Stephen D’Amato, junior Fred Messner and sophomore Henry Sandman. Junior Alex D’Amato will add to the rotation after missing all of last season due to Tommy John surgery.

Experience is abundant elsewhere in the field, with third-year starter Galen Foote catching and juniors Sam Breuer (second base) and Trevor Gopnik (shortstop) playing up the middle. Other key players are first baseman Chris Bauer, outfielder Matt Bisgyer and utility man Justin Metz.

Maret will have a fresh look after graduating the heart of its team, including catcher Sam Mulroy, who last week hit his first home run for Princeton University.

The remaining veterans will have to make adjustments if the Frogs are to compete for their ninth banner in 11 seasons. “I need people to step up and fill those shoes after last year,� said coach Antoine Williams.

Senior Walter Albee will be at

Matt Petros/The Current

Senior defender Meghan McCarthy, who signed with the University of Louisville, returns for Visitation.

the top of the pitching rotation, joined by senior Alex Korobkin, who also plays second base. Bryan Pourciau will add some punch to the batting order and is moving to center field from the infield. He also will be called on to pitch. Senior Bobby Appleby will contribute as a designated hitter and outfielder.

This spring could have some growing pains for Sidwell, which will return just four players and have an entirely new outfield. On the bright side, the Quakers have all their pitching back from last year, when they placed third in the conference. Seniors Sam Coolidge and Nick Plebani will head the staff, along with junior Nick Fineman.

Sidwell also has a solid middle infield, with senior Sam Hart at second base and junior Nicky Raab at shortstop. Young players who could make an impact include sophomores Sam Stevens (pitcher/catcher) and Finn Stern (center fielder/pitcher).

PVAC Field was young last year and is young this year, but coach Neil Gibson hopes that the extra year of experience will help the Falcons crack the Potomac Valley Athletic Conference elite after falling in the semifinals last season. “Last year was trial by fire for a lot of kids, a number of whom had never played at a varsity level, so that’s encouraging,� Gibson said.

The Falcons are as strong as they have been in recent years on defense, guided by junior pitchers Toby Kutler, Adam McInturff and Thomas McGrath, who also catches. Sophomore second baseman Casey Feffer and sophomore shortstop Dylan McGuire anchor the infield. Seniors include Wolf Boltanski (utility), Henry Phillips (third base) and Alex Roppolo (centerfield).

Washington International has fielded a small team in recent years

but has had enough players to make it through part of the season. So for the second year in a row, coach Tom O’Mara will have the Red Devils play conference teams, though they won’t be a full member of the league and thus cannot qualify for the tournament.

Key players include senior shortstop Alex Burness and pitcher/catcher Alex Gordon.

Sophomores Graison Flood (pitcher) and Jacob Gulezian (infield) bolster the lineup, along with freshman Ian Pearlstein (utility).

WCAC Andy Bradley, a 2000 Gonzaga graduate, has taken over the Eagles this season after longtime coach Joe Schourek stepped down following last year’s fifth-place finish in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference.

Bradley likes the Eagles’ outlook if they can stay healthy and play to their potential. Gonzaga will rely on several seniors for pitching, including all-conference second-team selection Chris Casale, who will play for Georgetown University.

Other veterans include pitcher/third baseman Alex Frazier, second baseman Sean Murphy and pitcher/catcher Danny Sabatano. “We’ve got a very good chance of having a very successful season,�

Bradley said.

Last season was the end of a run for a deep class of seniors at St. John’s, as eight are now with Division I programs and one more, L.J. Hoes, is a prospect for the Baltimore Orioles.

But that heavy senior class wasn’t the end of the pipeline for the Cadets, who reached the league semifinals. This year’s team will be guided by outfielder and offensive leader Josh Leemhuis, bound for the University of North Carolina, and left-handed pitcher Jimmy Reed, bound for the University of Maryland.

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ATHLETICS IN NORTHWEST WASHINGTON

Given the chance, pitcher flourishes ■ Baseball:

St. Albans 1, DeMatha 0

By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

Matt Petros/The Current

St. Albans senior Matt Bowman lets go a pitch against DeMatha on Friday. Bowman, the team’s new ace after starting sparingly last season, struck out 11 of the 22 batters he faced in the complete-game victory.

On the last day of last season, at Nationals Park, St. Albans coach Jason Larocque handed the ball to then-junior Matt Bowman, entrusting him with a start in the championship game of the Congressional Bank Baseball Classic. Bowman wasn’t at the top of the team’s rotation, but he needed the preparation: He would be the only starter back on next year’s team.

On Friday, Bowman once again got the start, this time against DeMatha — and this time as the staff ace. He more than met the challenge, striking out 11 of the 22 batters he faced in a complete-game, 1-0 win over the Stags at Riverdale Community Recreation Center.

Bowman received the nod in a big stadium and before television cameras last May, and more recently he saw a few innings during a spring break trip to Florida. But against the Stags, the reigning Washington Catholic Athletic Conference

After series of titles, it’s a race against time for hurdler ■ Track preview

By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

Interstate Athletic Conference titles are nothing new for St. Albans hurdler Seck Barry: He’s won five of them in the 110- and 300-meter races since his debut as a freshman. Even with that haul of accolades, he is not without motivation as he enters his senior season, according to coach Doug Boswell.

“The great thing with track is that the motivation is you’re always running against the clock,” Boswell said.

Barry smashed the clock last season, clipping a 36-year-old school record in the 300 hurdles with a time of 38.05 seconds at the Draper Invitational last season. The time also eclipsed a 16year-old record for the meet, one of the top events for local private schools.

This season Barry will try for

his fourth consecutive conference victory in the 300 hurdles and the third consecutive in the 110 hurdles. He will also chase first in the 100 after placing second the last two seasons.

Elsewhere, the Bulldogs expect to compete in distance events with Michael Dee, Alex Snowdon and Francis Thumpasery. They will also look to newcomer sprinters Fritz Parker and Thomas Wheet.

teams to beat in distance and relay events, led by Anthony Huff, who won the 3,200 last season, and Simon Gigli, who won the cross-country title in the fall. Ted Jeong and Olamilekan Ogunlola will add to the distance lineup. The Penguins also will look for points from jumper and hurdler Kevin Bouknight and middle-distance specialist Babatunde Ogunlola.

ISL/MAC DCIAA The School Without Walls boys team hopes its success in the D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association indoor championships will translate into the same in the outdoor event come May. Despite fielding only six runners, the Penguins scored 87 points and placed second.

“If we are as productive as we were in indoor, you can possibly look for an upset,” said coach Michael Huff.

Walls figures to be one of the

The Georgetown Day boys will find out if their mix of sprinters and distance runners is strong enough to put them over the top in the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference.

The Mighty Hoppers came in second to Potomac last season. Senior Hilton Augustine will try for victories after placing second in three jumping events and in the 110 hurdles last season, while junior Sam Freeling will head the distance lineup.

Depth could hamper the girls

in the Independent School League, but they will look for a good season from sophomore sprinter Dominique Campbell.

She set a school record in the 400 and was the league’s runnerup in that event last year.

Georgetown Visitation, aided by one of its most complete lineups in years, aims to be among the top three squads in the Independent School League.

The Cubs traditionally have been strong in distance events, but this year they expect to compete in sprints with freshman Kelsey Tillman and sophomore Terri Bullock. Freshman Stephanie Jones will add to the distance corps, as will Natalie Atabek, Bridget Connelly and Moira Ryan.

“We may not have the fastest sprinter or the fastest distance runner, but I think we have enough,” said coach Kevin Hughes.

National Cathedral is smaller than usual, with only about 30

champions, he put on a performance even he knew was appropriate for the staff ace.

“I think this is the first time I’ve come back and felt like I’m the No. 1 now,” Bowman said.

Bowman, who will play for Princeton University next year along with fellow Northwest alumni Sam Mulroy (Maret) and Andrew Whitener (Wilson), had a particularly tough route to the mound at St. Albans (5-4).

The team won two consecutive Interstate Athletic Conference banners behind spectacular pitching by Francis Brooke and Danny Hultzen.

Brooke has thrown more than 13 innings in seven appearances for Northwestern University.

Hultzen is 5-0 with a 1.62 earned-run average for the University of Virginia as its No. 1 starter.

Even with that heady competition, Larocque said he knew he had to give Bowman a chance at Nationals Park last season.

“I chose to give him the ball in the big game because I knew that he’d be the horse this year,” Larocque said. “It kind of set the tone at the end of last year that he was going to be the man this See St. Albans/Page 16

Events to watch ■ Draper

Invitational, St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes, May 2 ■ PVAC championships, Magruder High, May 12 ■ IAC/ISL/MAC/WCAC championships, May 16 ■ DCIAA championships, Spingarn High, May 28 runners, which could make it difficult for the Eagles to improve off last year’s thirdplace finish. But Cathedral won the Independent School League cross-country title in the fall, and it will again be formidable in distance events behind seniors Lottie Hedden and Hannah Wolfe. The Eagles will also aim for points in the 800 from Taylor Baskin and Kimora Brock, who won the Draper in the event and also placed second in the high jump in the conference.

The Sidwell boys hope their See Track/Page 16

16 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1, 2009

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the 3,200 last year, and hurdler Hannah Ceja.

Both Washington International squads are small, but the girls should have enough strong athletes to improve on last year’s sixth-place finish in the conference. Some of the Red Devils leaders are back with the team after time away, including junior distance runner Sagar Sou. She spent the last four years abroad, but as a sixth-grader she won the 800 and 1,600 and placed second in the 3,200.

This year Sou aims to top the four-year-old league record in the 1,600.

Zsazsa Ahmed is W a s h i n g t o n International’s best chance in the long and triple jump, while for the boys, Aubrey Schultz is their hope in the throwing events.

Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference cross-country banner last fall is a portend of good things to come this spring. The Quakers have a slate of young distance runners on which they will rely to improve on last year’s third-place finish.

Sophomore John McGowan, the crosscountry champion, will compete for titles in the 800 and 1,600. The Quakers also will pick up big points in sprints from seniors Jordan Hall, who won the 200 and anchored the victorious 4-by-100 relay, and Spencer Stebbins.

Other key athletes include distance runWCAC ners Matt Kim, Luke Gonzaga will look Mastalli-Kelly and to its juniors for Kyle Wilson, as well as points, particularly in senior hurdler A.J. middle-distance races, Parks. hurdles and the triple The girls will miss jump. One of the sprinter Lola Adetu, Eagles’ top returning who racked up two athletes is Billy Independent School Ledder, the reigning League titles and two Washington Catholic second-place finishes Athletic Conference last season, but still champion in the 800 have strong athletes and 1,600. They also from that second-place return Aaron Shepperd, squad. Among the leadwho will try to defend ers are senior middlehis league title in the distance runner and 110 hurdles and comhurdler Lauren Lewis pete in the triple jump. and junior distance runOther Eagles have ner Marisa Repka. posted strong earlyLewis will try to sweep season results as well, the hurdles after provincluding junior Stacey ing to be one of the Robinson and sophoKevin Hilgers/Current File Photo more Eric Pittman, area’s best in the 300, while Repka will chase St. Albans senior Seck Barry holds a school-record both hurdlers and titles in the 1,600 and time of 38.05 seconds in the 300-meter hurdles. triple jumpers, and dis3,200. tance runners Will Fleury, Earl Hamilton and Ben Zeiss.

PVAC At St. John’s, the program has grown this year Coach David Panush said the Edmund Burke to more than 70 athletes, and the boys hope to be boys team will be hard-pressed to produce any among the best in the conference after placing fifth Potomac Valley Athletic Conference champions, as last season. Two of the Cadets’ sprint relay teams it did last year, when it placed second. But the qualified for the Penn Relays for the first time in Bengals do have a handful of athletes who could years. They consist of junior Brandon Williams crack the top four in their events. and seniors Mike Busby, Lionell Gaines, Roberto “If we can do that in enough events, we can Hylton and Donald Quarles. St. John’s also has sneak up on people,” Panush said. high expectations for its throwers, with football Burke is strongest in distance competition, led linemen Andre Monroe, Kortlan Jackson and Pete by senior Conor Messinger in the 1,600 and 3,200 White heading the lineup. and Casey Mlyniec in the 800 and 1,600.

The Lady Cadets will be guided by their sprintThe girls squad is young, with only one senior, ers, including Vanessa Branch, Tiffany Davis, and will be led by a pair of juniors: distance runner Dominique Reed and Alex Oliver, also a top high Emma Timbers, who was second in the league in jumper.

ST. ALBANS From Page 15 year, and he’s really worked hard.”

Against DeMatha (5-3), Bowman allowed two hit batsmen on base, but he picked off both of them at first. He gave up his only hit in the fifth, a leadoff double that Kyle Riffe lined into left field. With the pressure of a runner behind him, Bowman retired the next three batters, in

the end catching Tony Perez looking at a slider.

That kept the game scoreless and gave the Bulldogs the opportunity they needed in the sixth.

With one out and Justin Coulter on second after a walk and a steal, Jake Fitzgerald put a ball on the ground through the gap into left field. That brought Coulter home for the only run St. Albans needed with its defense ruling the day.

Winning the matchup of two of the area’s top private school

squads also could help in establishing an identity for a team that didn’t know before the season began quite how it would look on the field.

“We’ve come into our own pretty well,” Bowman said.

“This team could have gone any way at the beginning of the season: a lot of fresh faces, guys who hadn’t really been put on the spot. Coach Larocque has just brought us all together and is maximizing our potential in a great way.”

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ATHLETICS IN NORTHWEST WASHINGTON

Wilson baseball holds onto unbeaten streak

By KEVIN HILGERS Current Staff Writer

Matt Petros/The Current

Wilson pitcher David Perez-Bradford lays down a bunt. The senior hopes to help the Tigers win a 16th consecutive D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association title on Saturday.

There was one close call, but the Wilson baseball team made it through a 10th consecutive year without a regular-season league loss.

Up 4-0 against Bell Multicultural last week, the Tigers suddenly found their lead down to a run during a sixth-inning Griffins charge. But Wilson endured the rally — preserving its streak for another season.

“We almost lost one out there,” said coach Eddie Smith.

The Tigers will try to keep an even longer record alive in the Congressional Bank Baseball Classic at Nationals Park on Saturday. The Tigers will be there vying for their 16th consecutive D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association title, as long as their two league tournament games this week go their way.

If they win the 9:30 a.m. league championship game, they will play either Gonzaga or defending classic champion St. Albans at 6:30 p.m. The two private schools will square off for a spot in the final game at 12:30 p.m.

The narrow win over Bell went to show that anything can happen if the Tigers don’t play to their potential.

“I think we just didn’t really come to play that day,” said senior pitcher David Perez-Bradford. “We didn’t really have that much energy, and they played a clean game, which we aren’t really used to in the DCIAA.” Wilson (13-8) has faced more challenges this season than it has in years past. Smith, a former assistant, took over for longtime coach Eddie Saah shortly before practices began, and the squad was unusually young, with only four seniors. Practice time and games were limited by bad weather, leading to long layovers between games.

Even so, the Tigers managed to continue their success in and outside the league; among the highlights were victories over See Wilson/Page 14

Brazilian boosts tennis at Walls

Wilson thrower sets new mark

By KEVIN HILGERS

By KEVIN HILGERS

Current Staff Writer

Current Staff Writer

Victor Andrade’s school year in the United States is turning out to be even better than he ever expected.

During a yearlong study abroad, the Brazilian helped the School Without Walls soccer team reach new heights in the fall. And this spring he is a favorite to bring the Penguins a singles tennis title.

Andrade will enter the D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association tournament, which runs today through Saturday, undefeated and looking to end Wilson’s six-year hold on the singles championship.

He knocked off the Tigers’ Hai Pham in Walls’ 4-3 team loss at Takoma Community Center on Friday. Pham, who also entered the match undefeated, was the toughest opponent Andrade had faced this season, and Andrade was nervous about the match.

In his short time in the District, he had learned that the Tigers fielded some of the best athletes in his two sports, but he eventually found a rhythm to defeat Pham.

See Tennis/Page 14

Wilson’s Ibrahima Kebe and his older brother left their parents and the strife in their native Guinea nearly 10 years ago, when they moved in with their aunt in Shepherd Park.

Eventually Kebe, always among the biggest kids in school, set aside his first sport of soccer and turned to throwing. Now he has found a new home in the discus.

“When you throw it, you’re going to know when you have a good throw because it’s going to feel like you did something right,” Kebe said.

His experience has culminated so far with an eighth-place finish at the Penn Relays last month, as he became what coaches believe to be the first D.C. public school field athlete to reach the finals at the prestigious event.

At the high school level, the discus sometimes has been reserved for moonlighting football linemen. Kebe is a lineman, too, but he’s made discus a serious commitment. The 6foot-1, 255-pound junior has been a competitive thrower since sixth grade at Shepherd See Discus/Page 14

Matt Petros/The Current

Victor Andrade volleys a ball during Friday’s match against Wilson.

Sports Desk Eagles’ eight continues its success at America Regatta Gonzaga’s first eight followed up its silver-medal performance at the Stotebury Cup Regatta with its firstever national championship last weekend.

The Eagles raced to first at the Scholastic Rowing Association of America Regatta at Mercer Lake, N.J., on Saturday. Their time on the 1,500meter course — 4 minutes, 51.9 seconds — was more than a second faster than that of St. Joseph’s Prep of Philadelphia.

Gonzaga, which hadn’t reached the finals at the event in 13 years, was the only first eight from the area to qualify for the final race.

St. Albans reached the petite final, placing third.

GDS, WIS place third at first private school meet Georgetown Day athletes scored in six different events to give the boys squad a third-place finish at the inaugural Maryland-D.C. private school track championship at St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes on Saturday.

The Washington International girls also placed third, behind a pair of wins by distance runner Sagar Sow. The Mighty Hoppers’ Hilton Augustine won the 110-meter hurdles in 16 seconds and finished among the top three in the high and long jumps.

Their other winners were Sam Freeling in the 1,600 (4:34.44) and Ben Joseph in the 800 (2:00.48).

Sow won the 800 in 2:36 and the 3,200 in 12:42.

St. Albans also had two winners: Tom Harrison in the 3,200 (9:45.01) and Glen Thomas in the shot put (49 feet, 9 1/2 inches).

Freshmen players shine in college debuts Former St. Albans pitcher Danny Hultzen became the University of Virginia’s first Atlantic Coast Conference baseball rookie of the year and helped the Cavaliers win their first league title in 13 years Sunday.

The left-handed pitcher went 7-1 and accumulated a 2.28 earned-run average, second in the conference. He also struck out 80. At the plate he hit for a .331 average, second among the league’s freshmen. Virginia beat Florida State University 6-3 in the title game.

In softball, Meg Krasne, a 2008 graduate of National Cathedral, earned honorable mention All-Ivy honors after her first season with the University of Pennsylvania. She batted .389 in conference games and .284 overall.

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May 4, 2011 ■ Page 13

ATHLETICS IN NORTHWEST WASHINGTON

NCS cruises past Visitation

By MIKE DEFABO Current Correspondent

National Cathedral School got off to a quick start and finished strong to win its fourth consecutive Carr Cup over Georgetown Visitation at Anacostia Community Boathouse on Friday.

The Eagles soared through the finish line 13 seconds ahead of Visitation with a time of 5:01. After the race, the team received the trophy commonly known as the “God Cup,” given to the winner of the annual rivalry race.

The two crews remained relatively even through the starting sequence but Cathedral began to pull ahead over the next 250 meters. “I thought [we] had a really good start and established [ourselves] in the race. It was hard for Visitation to respond,” said Cathedral coach Rob Wasalaski.

Coxswain Molly Sandza said it was important for the team to race well right out of the gate. “We’re usually a lighter crew, so our start is really our strength,” she said. “We like to get out fast and hang onto it. The plan was basically get ahead and stay ahead.”

By the 500-meter mark, Cathedral had a clear lead and was gaining ground with every stroke. There was never a reason for the Eagles to look back. “At that point we stopped looking [at the other boat] and just rowed our own race,” Sandza said.

The Cathedral seniors had knocked off Visitation each year since they were freshmen, so they expected nothing short of another victory Friday. “This year we did something kind of different and put all the seniors in the same boat,” Sandza said. “Our freshman year was kind of a turn because we hadn’t won it in a while, so it was nice to defend that in our senior year.”

“To us...[this race is] a big deal every year,” added senior Blair Kania. “It’s something we always gun for. This is our fourth Carr Cup and our fourth Carr Cup win.”

Coach Wasalaski was pleased with his team’s performance and said the race is always a good measuring stick at this point in the year.

“It sets us up with a lot of positive momentum going into the championship part of the season. We have a lot of potential, and I don’t think we’ve shown our best time yet,” he said.

Matt Petros/The Current

St. Albans knocked off Gonzaga Friday to defend its Foley Cup title. The crew followed the strong performance with a victory over four other squads at the Gonzaga Invitational on Saturday.

St. Albans takes home Foley Cup

By BORIS TSALYUK and MIKE DEFABO Current Staff Writers

St. Albans’ first varsity eight crew came from behind to defeat Gonzaga in a dual race and claim the 2011 Foley Cup at Anacostia Community Boathouse Friday. The top boat then rode the momentum into Saturday, finishing its best weekend this season by beating out four other crews to win the Gonzaga Invitational.

On a windy afternoon Friday, the St. Albans boat was hit by some wake and started off a bit wobbly, allowing Gonzaga to pull ahead by about four seats after the first 10 strokes. After the race, coxswain Jake Bradt said the boat was prepared to

come from behind.

“Knowing Gonzaga was probably going to go out early like that, our plan was to row our own race,” he said. “The first 500 we had everyone locked in, heads in the boat, staying calm.”

Gonzaga continued to row steadily and pulled ahead by six seats with 750 meters to go, but the Bulldogs then made a major push to get back in the race. They took a big 20 strokes to gain ground on the Gonzaga boat.

“Our coxswain said, ‘We’re down three seats, two seats, one seat, we’re even,’” said senior Julian Blarel. “At that point [the Gonzaga rowers] were going out; their hearts were dying.”

See Foley/Page 14

Local product leads top-ranked Cavaliers

By BORIS TSALYUK Current Staff Writer

Last summer, a rookie pitcher named Stephen Strasburg took D.C. by storm, breaking onto the scene with the Washington Nationals and giving the team’s supporters reason for hope.

Former St. Albans pitcher Danny Hultzen, class of 2008, could also soon bring life to a struggling franchise.

The talented left-hander, now with the top-ranked University of Virginia Cavaliers, is arguably the top amateur pitcher in the country and soon will be one of the top picks in the Major League Baseball first-year player draft.

Hultzen, a junior at Virginia, is 9-1 this season and leads the Atlantic Coast Conference with an ERA of 1.13. He has struck out 112 batters in 75.2 innings while walking just 12 and is holding opposing batters to a measly .187 batting average. Hultzen is 29-3 over three seasons at Virginia and serves as a main reason that Virginia has dominated the ACC this year.

St. Albans athletic director David Baad was also the baseball coach for the Bulldogs through 2007 and coached Hultzen for three seasons. When his pupil chose Virginia, Baad was confident Hultzen would be successful, but it was tough to predict that the player’s

left arm would make him one of the most sought-after pitchers in the nation.

“I’m not sure it’s ever possible to expect anyone to do this well, to be the best pitcher in the country. But certainly my sense of it was he had this capability,” said Baad. “I knew his talent and his work ethic and his mental makeup as a pitcher.”

The Bethesda native didn’t have to take the college route. Shortly after Hultzen graduated from St. Albans in 2008, the Arizona Diamondbacks drafted him and were prepared to offer him a seven-figure signing bonus to skip school and join the team. Instead, Hultzen committed to spending at least three years at Virginia. Per Major League Baseball rules, four-year college players are not permitted to enter the draft until after their junior year.

During his time at Virginia, Hultzen has grown bigger physically, added life to his fastball and fine-tuned his mechanics to the point where he looks ready to be a top pro pitcher the second he arrives.

“He’s filled out to a 6-foot-3, 205- to 210-pound athlete, and that’s not only added velocity but also the ability to repeat his motion because of how strong he is now, and it’s improved his command of his overall game,” said Baad.

Hultzen doesn’t have overpowering stuff — his fastball tops out at about 94 or 95 miles per hour. But he combines a good fastball with a solid slider and change-up pitch, and his control of the strike zone has drawn rave reviews from scouts.

On Monday, Sports Illustrated ranked Hultzen the No. 3 prospect — and top left-handed pitcher — in the country. “It’s a testament to Danny,” said Baad. “He’s an incredibly hard worker and one of the nicest, most humble kids you’ll ever want to meet.

Every bit of success he gets he deserves.”

Left, Courtesy of Virginia Sports right, Matt Petros/Current file photo

Former St. Albans pitcher Danny Hultzen is rated as one of the top amateur baseball players in the country.

14 WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 2011

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St. Albans basketball will bid adieu to head coach Duane Simpkins this week after the school announced Monday that he is leaving to become director of basketball operations at Towson University. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s such a great asset to the school in so many ways, but he just had the college bug and he wanted to go, and I understand,â&#x20AC;? athletic director David Baad said in a phone interview Monday.

Simpkins, a standout basketball player at DeMatha in the early 1990s and at the University of Maryland from 1992 to 1995, led the Bulldogs from 2007 to 2010.

Prior to that, he was the head coach at Sidwell Friends for two seasons.

On Monday, Simpkins, who will work alongside new Towson basketball coach Pat Skerry, said the new position was too good an opportunity to pass up. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Eventually I wanted to get into college coaching, and this is a great way to get my feet wet and learn inside-

out how itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s run at the collegiate level,â&#x20AC;? he said.

Simpkins will leave for Towson later this month after â&#x20AC;&#x153;tying up loose endsâ&#x20AC;? with the Bulldogs. His experience at St. Albans was unique, he said, because the school has a policy that forbids recruiting for athletic purposes. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not a situation where youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to bring in three, four studs every year. You might get a great player once every couple years,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You have to be connected with the students. These kids bust their tails in the classroom, and you have to be conscious of that.â&#x20AC;?

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FOLEY From Page 13 With 250 meters to go, St. Albans pulled ahead by one seat.

The Bulldogs boat sprinted through the final 200 and finished seven seats up with a time of 4 minutes, 3 seconds. Gonzaga finished at 4:05. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We rode really high, and they were really much more controlled and they had a lot more left in the tank,â&#x20AC;? said Gonzaga coach Marc Mandel. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We had to pay a lot to get that lead. I told the guys â&#x20AC;&#x201D; against a team like that you have to have a perfect race. And we almost did but we didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t finish it off.â&#x20AC;?

When St. Albans and Gonzaga met two weeks ago at St. Andrews, Gonzaga bested St. Albans by sev-

eral seconds. After the race, St. Albans made some substitutions in its top varsity boat. Coach Ted Haley said his team rowed a strong, powerful race and called Fridayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s performance a â&#x20AC;&#x153;completely different race from St. Andrews.â&#x20AC;?

Blarel said the changes caught Gonzaga off guard. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know we had made a switch, so they thought it was going to be a redo of St. Andrews, where they destroyed us,â&#x20AC;? he said.

St. Albans was awarded the Foley Cup for winning the annual race. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve developed a strong rivalry with Gonzaga. They are one the strongest crews in the area and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve always been neck-and-neck with them,â&#x20AC;? said Bradt. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Foley Cup means a lot to us,â&#x20AC;? he added. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s great to be able to

call ourselves one of the fastest crews in the area.â&#x20AC;?

On Saturday, St. Albans topped Gonzaga and Central Catholic (Pittsburgh) in the finale of the Gonzaga Invitational on the Anacostia. The Bulldogs finished in 4:33.1, nearly seven seconds better than second-place Gonzaga.

The race was scheduled to involve just three teams, but the Charlie Butt Regatta, set to take place at the same time on the Potomac River, was canceled due to continued flooding, and Gonzaga decided to welcome St. Albans and Yorktown to its event.

After beating Yorktown in a twoteam heap, the Bulldogs went on to beat the Eagles in what Haley called â&#x20AC;&#x153;by far their best race up until this pointâ&#x20AC;? in the season.

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Landon 7, Gonzaga 5 Paul VI 12, St. Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 3 Sidwell 16, St. Andrewâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 6 St. Albans 3, DeMatha 2 Maret 9, Georgetown Day 8 Gonzaga 17, Woottoon 5 Episcopal 14, St. Albans 8 Maret 11, Eleanor Roosevelt 7 St. Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 4, H.D. Woodson 3 St. Albans 17, Yorktown 3

Baseball St. Albans 9, Episcopal 0 Gonzaga 9, Good Counsel 3 Maret 5, Sidwell 3 Wilson 24, Theodore Roosevelt 0 Flint Hill 23, Maret 8 St. Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 10, St. Albans 4 Gonzaga 6, Paul VI 3 St. Albans 5, Episcopal 1 DeMatha 3, Wilson 2 Maret 14, St. Andrewâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1 Sidwell 13, St. James 3 Flint Hill 14, GDS 3 Bishop Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Connell 2, St. Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 0 Wilson 13, Bell Multicultural 1

St. Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 6, Bishop Ireton 4 Gonzaga 19, Bishop Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Connell 9 Avalon School 3, Sidwell 1 Sidwell 10, Chen (Ellicott City, Md.) 0 Severna Park (Md.) 11, St. Albans 9 St. Albans 6, McDonogh 4 Maret 6, Bullis 2 Hylton (Woodbridge, Va.) 3, Wilson 0 Potomac (Va.) 3, Wilson 2 Gonzaga 9, St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ryken 1

Girls Lacrosse Sidwell 15, Georgetown Day 9 National Cathedral 17, Maret 5 Georgetown Visitation 11, Holton-Arms 4 McNamara 13, Wilson 10 Georgetown Visitation 15, St. Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1 National Cathedral 16, Georgetown Day 5 St. Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 14, Wilson 7 St. Stephenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s & St. Agnes 16, NCS 3 Potomac School 18, Sidwell 2

Softball Georgetown Visitation 6, Maret 0 Sidwell 11, Holton-Arms 3 National Cathedral 7, Holton-Arms 5 Georgetown Visitation 1, St. Stephenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 0 Maret 13, Episcopal 0 Good Counsel 13, Georgetown Visitation 1 Georgetown Visitation 6, Paul VI 5

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JUNE 8, 2011 ■ Page 11

ATHLETICS IN NORTHWEST WASHINGTON

Sidwell defeats Wilson, captures first City Title

By MIKE DEFABO Current Correspondent

Mark Ossolinski took the mound Sunday morning against Maret looking for a save.

Two games and more than 10 hours and 110 pitches later, the Sidwell right-hander walked off the bump as the MVP of the 2011 Congressional Bank Baseball Classic.

After closing out Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference rival Maret in the private school championship, Ossolinski toed the rubber as the starter in the nightcap. He surrendered just one earned run in a four-hit complete game to help the Quakers defeat D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association champion Wilson 5-3 at Nationals Park and capture the City Title.

“He just kept saying, ‘Coach, I want to finish this game. Don’t take me out. I want to finish this game,’” Sidwell head coach John Simon said afterward.

Ossolinski said the championship win at the Major League Baseball ballpark was “the perfect way” to end the year and his career at Sidwell. “It was kind of surreal. I’ve watched a bunch of superstars play here, so to know I was playing on the same field was really great,” he said after his team’s victory in the fourth annual classic, which pits the champion

of the D.C. public school league against a top private school.

After Sidwell beat Maret 7-6 to advance to the final, Wilson defeated Cardozo 12-0 to claim its 19th consecutive DCIAA title and set up the championship matchup. Though Wilson and Sidwell rarely meet on the baseball diamond during the regular season, there was little love lost between the squads or their fans. The cheering sections implored their respective teams to rally throughout the contest between Northwest D.C. rivals.

Wilson head coach Eddie Smith said his starter, senior right-hander Ben Whitener, got into a groove as the game went on, but three walks and a first-inning error by the second baseman cost the team two unearned runs and potentially the game. “A couple of plays didn’t go our way,” Smith said. “That’s the way life is sometimes. It doesn’t go your way at times.”

With two outs in the first, Wilson second baseman Noah Lipshie made a good play to stop Nick Fernandez’s sharply hit grounder, but his hastily thrown ball got under the first baseman’s glove, allowing two runs to score.

But Wilson tied it back up in the bottom half of the inning. First, Lipshie scored when Sidwell catcher Sam Stevens’ throw to second

went into the outfield. Then, the tying run tagged from third when Sidwell left-fielder Brett Perrin went tumbling into the stands in foul territory to make a catch worthy of the nightly Top 10 list on ESPN’s “SportsCenter.”

The play, along with a 5-for-6 day at the plate across the two games, put Perrin well within the argument for MVP. In the next inning, he tripled and scored on Chase Plebani’s line-drive single up the middle to give Sidwell a 3-2 lead.

Perrin said he was so excited about the hit that he almost missed second base, adding: “I’m happy for the team. I’m happy for the fans, happy for the Sidwell community.

Everything is good. Life is great right now.”

Sidwell put up the two decisive runs in the third inning. Matt McGlaughlin successfully laid down a squeeze bunt to score David Steinbach. Plebani, who earned the pitching win in the game against Maret earlier in the day, then plated McGlaughlin with his second RBI single of the game.

Wilson put up a third run in the fourth inning when Whitener doubled and scored, but a fly out with runners on second and third ended the Tigers’ best shot at a comeback.

Whitener earned the MVP award for the DCIAA side. On the mound, he struck out three batters while walking five and surrendered three earned runs through six innings.

Although the Tigers fell in the City Title game, Smith said his team will be ready to compete for the championship again next year. “We had a lot of depth — we just had a lot of young depth,” coach Smith said. “Over time, as those guys get to experience more and more, we’ll be able to compete with some of those private schools.”

Sidwell 7, Maret 6

Matt Petros/The Current

Sidwell players celebrate after they claimed their first Congressional Bank Classic title Sunday evening. Above right, pitcher Mark Ossolnski was named the game’s MVP.

Sports Desk St. Albans alum drafted into pros Danny Hultzen, who was a star pitcher for St. Albans before graduating in 2008, was selected second overall by the Seattle Mariners in the Major League Baseball firstyear player draft Monday evening.

The 6-foot-3-inch left-hander is finishing his third year at the University of Virginia and is considered likely to accept a contract from the Mariners and turn pro in lieu of returning for his senior season.

Hultzen is Virginia’s all-time leader in victories (31) and strikeouts (378), but his college career isn’t over just

The much-anticipated contest between two Mid-Atlantic Conference and Northwest D.C. foes lived up to the hype, but Maret didn’t get the payback it wanted after falling to Sidwell last month.

The Quakers’ bats heated up late and they won a thriller 7-6 in the private school final at Nationals Park Sunday to earn a spot in the City Title game that evening.

With the score tied at two in the top of the sixth, Sidwell’s Matt McLaughlin doubled to right field, scoring Sam Stevens and David Steinbach. The Quakers went on to tag Maret senior Henry Emerson — who had come on

yet, even if he doesn’t return next season to pitch for the Cavaliers. Virginia will compete against the University of California, Irvine, in a Super Regional this weekend, with the winner advancing to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.

Bulldogs name new coach It didn’t take long for St. Albans to find a new head basketball coach. Just over a month after Duane Simpkins announced he was leaving the school for the college ranks, the Bulldogs revealed Glennard “O.J.” Johnson as their new head coach.

Johnson, a St. Albans alum (class of 1997), will come over from Henry A. Wise High School in Upper

in relief of Andrew Culp — for five runs in the inning to take a commanding 7-2 lead.

Jonathan Korobkin tripled home Nick Fernandez in the bottom of the sixth, and the Frogs scored another run in the inning on an error to make things interesting.

They then loaded the bases in the seventh and got the two lead runners home to cut the deficit to one. But Sidwell’s Chase Plebani struck out Nick Leonard with a runner in scoring position to end the game.

Wilson 12, Cardozo 0 Della Romano was tough on the mound and the Tigers were barely threatened as they cruised to their 19th straight D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association title Sunday at Nationals Park.

Romano, the only female on Wilson’s baseball team, allowed just two hits and struck out six in a shutout performance. Coach Eddie Smith said she deserved the opportunity to take the hill, and she didn’t disappoint, settling in after giving up a leadoff walk in the first inning. “I thought it was just her time,” he said. “She pitched wonderfully.”

Wilson grabbed a 3-0 lead in the first inning as Ben Whitener drove in two runs and then stole home, and the Tigers never looked back from there.

Romano and St. Albans senior Henry Sisson received sportsmanship awards for their performance in Sunday’s all-star game.

That contest featured standout players from 16 public and private high schools in the city.

Current staff writer Boris Tsalyuk contributed to this report.

Marlboro, Md., where he has been the athletic director and head basketball coach for the past five years. The Georgetown University graduate guided the Wise Pumas to an 18-0 record and a Maryland State 4A title in 2011, and to the state finals in 2009.

“Were excited on a number of levels,” said St. Albans athletic director David Baad. “First, the fact he’s a great basketball coach. We think he’ll have a big influence on young people’s lives. And the fact he’s an alumnus is a great thing — he understands the school. It’s going to be great.”

The school initially received 30 applicants and narrowed the field down to eight interviewees. Johnson was selected last week from a group of three finalists.