All-County spring sports teams announced
So it’s that time of year again. Today, the All-County teams for this past spring season run to put on final stamp on the season that was.
Reflecting back on it makes me think back a bit to my first spring covering Southern Maryland way back in 2003. Obviously that means I’ve stuck around too long. It also means I’ve seen some things. And some special things happened in 2003 ... but then 2018 offered a few highlights, too.
First, my longtime co-worker Michael Reid finally found his way out of the sports department (again), kicked upstairs to be the deputy editor of The Calvert Recorder. One of my favorite memories from 2003 was when he wrote a feature on Calvert’s Sean Corcoran, who had signed to play baseball at Xavier University if memor y serves. Can’t say I really remember the story, but that’s mainly because all the photos were of Corcoran’s teammate Storm Griffin.
So fast forward to this spring season and one of his final assignments in sports was to serve as photographer for the Class 2A and 3A softball state championship games. Easy gig, with no writing attached, and he delivered some quality photos. But, in a fitting bookend to our time together, he misidentified one of the Huntingtown girls in one of the Hurricanes’ celebration shots. But thankfully this time he had me to catch his mistake, so Paxtan Perry was not identified as Alexis Mann.
But now he’s off to deliver thorough community features and save turtles crossing busy roads and I’m left to think about the highlights from what I covered this past spring. And it has to start with the same sport that would have highlighted spring of 2003: softball.
The 2003 season featured, first, a 16-inning game between McDonough and Calvert that spanned April 30 to May 1 with the Rams finally squeaking out a 1-0 win.
Pitchers Abbey Welch (McDonough) and Megan Elliott (Calvert) combined for 63 strikeouts in the marathon contest. Elliott and Calvert eventually reached the
3A championship game where the team lost 1-0 to Severna Park, but the lingering memory of that game is Elliott striking out the first 18 batters she faced before the Falcons were able to scratch out a run in the seventh.
No Southern Maryland Athletic Conference softball team won a state title in 2004, either, but in the 14 seasons that followed the conference has stood alone atop the state having taken home 17 state championship trophies, shut out only in 2017.
The conference, which has 14 schools now but numbered just 12 when Huntingtown won its first crown in 2005, boasted two state champions in four different seasons over that span, with La Plata (2A) and Huntingtown (3A) doing those very honors this season.
On top of bringing back
new state championship trophies, the Warriors and Hurricanes also delivered a nice little rivalry this season.
I saw the Warriors take out Huntingtown 2-1 in extra innings in their regular season matchup on April 26, and then saw Huntingtown hold off La Plata for a 3-2 victory in the SMAC championship game a couple weeks later in a game that would have been fitting as a state final — well, if the teams would have had dugouts, anyway, or at least a fence around the team’s benches...
I didn’t see much track and field, but was at the SMAC championships at Lackey long enough to see Ted Black attack the food in the hospitality tent with the fervor of a champion.
The host Chargers attacked their competition, as well, sweeping the boys and girls competitions. That was to be a theme, as Lackey’s girls proceeded to win the 1A state title — the girls won the 2A title each of the previous two seasons.
Moving on to baseball, through 16 spring seasons there have probably been a handful of baseball pitching performances that really stand out. This year delivered a few more.
First, Patuxent’s Sayo Kintunde shutting down Huntingtown 1-0 on April 3. The Towson University-bound Panther allowed just one hit and struck out 15 while also swatting a solo homer run to account for the game’s lone run.
In the postseason, La Plata’s Dean Kirby produced a similar line in the 2A South Region Section II final against Patuxent. Kirby allowed just three hits, walked none and struck out 15 in the Warriors’ 9-1 win.
A few days later, Huntingtown’s Ryan Terrents, after basically not pitching all season, helped his team reach its second state final in three seasons by hurling a two-hit shutout against Chesapeake in the Hurricanes’ 1-0 win in the 3A semifinals.
Rounding out my list of highlights from this season is lacrosse.
It’s kind of funny to look back at the paper’s 2003 scoreboard (which was not kept up ver y well, I may add) to see the Northern boys and Leonardtown girls occupying places not at the top (Patuxent was the boys champ and Calvert the girls). Because for the greater majority of the time since those teams have blocked out a lot of sun to the teams underneath them.
Northern’s boys hung with private school power Landon before falling 10-7 on April 10. But that only serves to show how far the program has come over the last decade-anda-half. The Patriots, who won the first state title by any SMAC lacrosse program in 2017, reached a second straight state championship game this past spring.
On the girls side, Huntingtown won its first region championship this spring, but was unable to break Leonardtown’s hold on SMAC.
The Hurricanes looked ready to do it when they met the Raiders on April 27, up 3-1 late in the first half. But then the Raiders scored four goals over the first half’s final 1 minute 8 seconds, three by Catie Corolla (the St. Mary’s County Athlete of the Year for girls lacrosse), to go ahead for good in what ended a 7-5 Leonardtown win.
The victory essentially sealed the SMAC title for the Raiders and longtime coach Ken Mcilhenny who planned to retire from the program after dominating SMAC for the last decade-plus.
So that’s all for the spring of 2018. I don’t know what 2033 is going to hold, but I sure hope Mike does something somebody will still remember then.