Fifteen years have passed since Maryland last won an Atlantic Coast Conference indoor track title, a winless streak that could end next weekend, when the Terps head to Greensboro, N.C., for the ACC Championships.
Sparked by their two most recent recruiting classes under coach Bill Goodman, Maryland's men's and women's teams have cracked the national dual meet rankings for the first time since United States Track and Field News started the poll several years ago.
The men's team, coming off a third-place finish at last week's Kent State Meet, is ranked 22nd in the latest poll, mainly on the strength of freshman Paul Gittens and sophomores Mike Starks and Mike Depry.
Gittens has qualified for next month's IC4A competition in the 200- and 500-meter runs, and he'll be part of the 4 x 400 relay team. Starks has the 10th-best high jump (2.09 meters) and ninth-best long jump (6.74) in the ACC this season, and has qualified for the IC4A long jump competition. Depry's 55-meter time of 6.31 seconds is 10th best in the conference. He has qualified for the IC4A's in that event and the 200 meters.
The women's team, led by sophomore Kerrie Bowes (McDonogh) -- winner of an ACC Performer of the Week award in December -- is ranked 19th in the nation. Bowes has the top ACC times in the 800-meter -- (2:11.05) and mile run (4:52.62). She has qualified for next month's ECAC Championships in each event.
Freshman Raina Domneys (Old Mill) has qualified for the ECACs in the 55-meter hurdles and the triple jump. Her 11.83-meter jump is third best in the ACC. Senior Paula LaVorgna, an outstanding cross country runner, has the fourth-best conference showing in the 5,000-meter run.
Goucher rebounds
Both its men's and women's basketball teams stumbled early this season, but with the Capital Athletic Conference tournament beginning on Tuesday, Goucher College has righted itself at the perfect time.
The men's team (14-8, 8-4), behind reigning CAC Player of the Year and senior point guard David Clark (Catonsville), has won six of its past eight games to move into second place in the league. Clark leads the Gophers in scoring (17.0 ppg) and assists (4.5).
Sophomore center Predrag Durkovic and junior guard Chad Beeten have been hot during Goucher's 6-2 run. Durkovic is shooting 54.2 percent from the field and averaging 17.1 points during the streak, and Beeten has hit 48 percent of his three-point attempts and averaged 12.6 points over that stretch.
The women's team (14-7, 9-2) has been rolling for more than a month, having won 11 of its last 12 games to remain in third place, a game behind Marymount and Salisbury State. The Gophers are getting it done with superb balance. Four players are scoring in double figures on average.
Sophomore center Alice Kennedy (12.9 ppg) and junior forward Didi Cotton (Western, 12.6) are the leaders. Senior forward Cassandra Clemons (Loch Raven) ranks 21st in Division III in rebounding (12.6), and freshman forward Sarah Weaver (Towson) is averaging 11.1 points coming off the bench.
The Gophers wind up the regular season with a pivotal game Saturday (5:30 p.m.) against visiting Salisbury State.
Et cetera
Coppin State's men's basketball team owns the nation's longest home-winning streak, at 28 games. . . . Off to an 8-1 start, Towson State's gymnastics team will play host to the 10th annual TSU Invitational on Saturday at 2 p.m. The field includes Maryland, George Washington, North Carolina, Penn, Temple and William & Mary. . . .Freshman forward Will Marshall (Sparrows Point) helped Western Maryland's men's basketball team (11-12, 7-5) move closer to its first playoff berth in 15 years by scoring 54 points and grabbing 24 rebounds during the Green Terror's 2-1 week that included Marshall's game-winning basket against Johns Hopkins. . . . Washington College freshman Darlene Schaub (Catonsville), who will compete in this weekend's Centennial Conference championships, set a school record in the 100-yard breaststroke last week. . . . After helping UMBC's 1-mile relay team finish second in its section of the Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden in New York two weeks ago, sophomore sprinter David Bobb broke his own school record in the 55-meter -- with a time of 6.29 seconds at last week's Delaware Invitational. . . . The pressure is on the men's lacrosse team at Salisbury State. After winning its first Division III men's lacrosse championship last May, the Sea Gulls have been ranked No. 1 in preseason polls by Lacrosse magazine and Face-Off '95 Yearbook. The Sea Gulls received 38 of 40 first-place votes in the Face-Off Poll.