Its tourney canceled, Catoctin girls run for the hills

Cougars embark on team-bonding trip to Rocky Gap; Knights travel to D.C. area

Thursday, Dec. 29, 2005

The Catoctin High girls’ basketball team wasn’t supposed to have this time off for the holidays. But after their winter tournament was canceled, the Cougars were determined to make the most of it.

Catoctin had scheduled a rare foray south to Washington, D.C., to participate in the D.C. Hall of Fame Classic at Trinity University. But when Dunbar (D.C) had to drop out, the tournament itself was called off, as the Crimson Tide was the team through which the event was sanctioned.

‘‘They fill out paperwork and they make sure everything’s run legally and there aren’t any violations, and in order for us to participate it has to be sanctioned or we could be penalized where we couldn’t participate in the Maryland state playoffs,” Catoctin head coach Amy Murray said. ‘‘It was sanctioned in D.C. and Maryland okayed it, but ... for some reason Dunbar pulled out Friday, and legally we had to drop out.”

Dropping out was a disappointment, as Catoctin traditionally doesn’t travel far during the Christmas break and was looking forward to seeing some new competition.

‘‘There was going to be college scouts there, and the competition was going to be a little harder, so we chose to go with that one,” said Murray, who accompanied her team to Westminster during the Christmas break last year as a first-year head coach. ‘‘I’m trying to get the girls some recognition, so yeah, it’s frustrating—but everything happens for a reason.”

Suddenly Catoctin (2-2), slated to play Dunbar and Largo of Prince George’s County, had a lot of free time. Murray decided to use it for a little team bonding.

The Cougars put basketball on the back-burner for a couple days and headed for the hills—for Rocky Gap State Park, just outside Cumberland, Md., and some needed relaxation.

‘‘We’re going to go on a little trip and do some bonding, that sort of stuff,” Murray said. ‘‘We’ll do some team unity things and that sort of stuff. The girls were really excited about spending the night in D.C., so we’re going to make this an overnight trip for them.”

Trips away from the rigors of regular training and the grind of constant playing have long been a staple of successful team building. After a few hours—spread over two days—in the woods of Allegany County, the Cougars hope to return refreshed, reorganized, re-energized and ready to rumble.

They left on the right note. Catoctin dropped Francis Scott Key in the Cougars’ final game of 2005, 71-53 on Dec. 22, thanks to 15 points from Kate Robinson and another 15 from Ashley Metal. This was a much better game on which to dwell, Murray said, following a tough 56-50 loss to Thomas Johnson the day before.

While Catoctin doesn’t get to build a win streak over the break, the Cougars will perhaps have a different advantage over the rest of the Class 1A field after this opportunity to further cement their bond as teammates.

‘‘We always try to look at the positive aspects of things,” said Murray, who guided Catoctin to the Monocacy Valley Athletic League’s Antietam Division and Class 1A West Region championship last year. ‘‘I guess someone could have gone down there and gotten hurt, something like that. The girls are real flexible, and they’re good kids, so they’ll turn a negative into a positive.”

Middletown goes downtown

Middletown High is looking for some recognition. Its girls’ basketball team recently traveled to the nation’s capital to get it.

The Knights, longtime participants in the Brunswick Christmas tournament, instead entered a more prestigious (and less local) event this year. Seeking acknowledgment of their recent accomplishments and the talent level they plan to boast for the foreseeable future, Middletown signed up to play in the International Association of Approved Basketball Officials, or IAABO, tournament at Washington Bible College in Lanham, Md.

It’s nothing against the Railroaders, who run a pretty good tourney, according to Middletown head coach Bill Miskell. But the Knights are looking to stretch their wings a bit, and IAABO extended the invite.

‘‘This is our first time playing a D.C. tournament,” said Miskell, who helped the Knights secure the Monocacy Valley Athletic League’s Piedmont Division championship last year and has seen his team get off to a 4-0 start this winter. ‘‘I hope this is not the last time. We’ve got some really good kids in the pipeline [for] the next six or seven years, so we’re hoping we can venture out.”

Middletown’s current team was spotted coming down the pipeline some time ago, and conventional wisdom has it going deep into the playoffs this year. Led by senior Kristin Waeber’s 17 points per game, the Knights have beaten defending Class 1A West Region champion Catoctin, perennial power Linganore and Frederick, and they ended the first part of the season with a convincing 54-44 triumph over Thomas Johnson, the defending Class 4A North champs. Longtime contributors Jill Holian and Amanda Kinna (both averaging between 11 and 12 points) have helped spread the offense around for Middletown beyond most teams’ ability to defend.

The Knights played Surrattsville of Prince George’s County on Tuesday and beat the Hornets, 42-29. Waeber scored 11, Vandergrift 10 and Kinna pitched in with seven points as the Knights got accustomed to unfamiliar surroundings.

‘‘We’re a good ball club,” said Miskell, whose team played Wednesday against the winner of Walt Whitman-Anacostia in a game not complete by The Gazette’s press deadlines. A win would earn the Knights a bid to the tournament finals Thursday at 8 p.m. ‘‘We’ve played well in big games, versus Linganore, versus TJ, and we came down to the big city with no scouting report and got it done.”

But Middletown isn’t just out to boast about its own skills. The Knights want to improve, something they felt they did in past years by playing the likes of St. John’s-Prospect Hall’s Monica Merkel and Marah Strickland—among other local stars—in the Brunswick Tournament.

But with Merkel and Strickland gone and SJPH’s participation in doubt—and with the opportunity to branch out and challenge the team in new ways—Miskell was happy to get involved in the eight-team IAABO tourney. His players agreed.

‘‘I think it’s quite an honor to go down there and play teams of a high caliber,” Waeber said following the win over TJ. ‘‘I know this will be a big help once we get to the playoffs. We’ll be playing against [Class] 2A, 3A and 4A teams, and that will really help us later.”

Added Miskell: ‘‘Coach [Bill] Martin at Brunswick does a great job, but he understood that we have to go out and try to test ourselves a little bit to try to get ready for postseason play. And the only way we can do that is go out and play some games that are outside our comfort level.

‘‘So that’s what we’re hoping to do. This kind of travel is something the kids aren’t used to doing, and we’ll play some teams that we really don’t have a chance to scout too much. We’ll have to do a lot of stuff off the cuff, so it’ll be good.”