Liberty 16 Century 10 -- my take

Since Century girls lacrosse was established, they have dominated Carroll County. They make it to the State 1A-2A Final about every year, and win it about 1/2 the time.

This year has been hard for them -- they've lost to 2 county teams, including last night's loss to Liberty.

Century has a history of producing outstanding players - Kelly Kasper (who is leading Uof Md right now in her senior yr), Lauren Schwarzmann (Hopkins), Jenny Steadman.
This year, they have Katie Schwarzmann.

She isn't just outstanding - she really is phenomenal. Everything about her is superfast - running the ball, cuts, stickwork. She's seriously twice as fast as anyone, and she's deceptive - she can be standing still, wait for her defender to glance away, and then she's gone -- 2 steps in front of them. She consistently stuffs passes or intercepts b/c of such good reflexes. She can shoot from impossible angles, and score. And she's not a ball hog - she will pass if she's defended well. It would be interesting to see her goal/shot on goal percentage -- because I bet it would show that she just makes very good use of each shot.

So last night, Liberty assigned a player to her. Westminster did the same thing - put a defender on her who doesn't even look to see where the ball is - they stare at Schwarzmann, and you can tell that their whole job is to mark her out of the game. She did a great job - Schwarzmann scored 5 goals, which is light for her.

The part that made me uncomfortable wasn't that player's great defense -- it was what was going on in the stands. The Liberty fans booed Schwarzmann when she had the ball. They cheered when she messed up. ((It really was cheering at her mistakes -- for instance, she dropped it once-- no Liberty player even near her. She just uncharacteristically bobbled the ball and picked it right back up. They were cheering because she made an error.)
It's one thing to cheer for your team - or even against the opposing team -- but to cheer against an individual??

At one point, I just sat there and thought -- that's a 16 or 17 year old kid who has a whole stand of people cheering personally against her. I wondered how she was handling it.

The other thing I'll say is that the officiating was ridiculous. I don't think it's good to whine about refs, but you had to see them.

They handed out so many cards to Century that at one point, Century was playing 4 men down. I heard that they were carding people just for asking for clarification about calls. It was so bad that Century's AD escorted them out of the stands because he thought Century parents may give them a hard time.

Even with better reffing, Liberty may have won yesterday - I'd say even 'probably would have'. It's just hard when bad officiating clearly affects the outcome of a game.


BUT that's exactly why I love sports so much. For that one hour, everything matters so much. Each team's intensity, the coaching, the outcome -- it all matters. And even more important is how it's all handled.

Bad refs and unsportsmanlike behavior may be part of the picture, but you know that Century's coaches will evaluate what they had control over and improve on it. ((Draw control was a factor, finishing on shots, etc)). Just like last year, they'll use this loss to make their team better.

It may also be that the time for any single team to dominate the county is over. (No CC team is undefeated.) With most HS lax players playing club all year long, every HS team has quality players.

It's happening in Howard county, too -- Hebron, who hadn't lost to a Maryland team in something like 18 years, lost to John Carroll this year, and then even lost to 2 Howard county teams (Centennial and Glenelg).

And that's even a good thing -- because when the score is always 20something - 1, no one is learning anything.