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Taylor, Lewis compete at state golf tournament

The Garrett County Republican

COLLEGE PARK — Northern senior Chase Taylor and Southern freshman Hank Lewis both battled valiantly through substandard weather conditions on Tuesday, but the two fell just short of making it to the Day 2 of the Maryland state golf championships.

The state golf tournament began on Tuesday and was held at the University of Maryland in College Park. Though both Taylor and Lewis were both eliminated, they each had strong starts as they were both above the cutoff line at one point during the back nine.

Taylor finished 15-over (86) to tie for 31st. For him, it was the stretch from holes No. 12-18 that were his undoing.

“The conditions were pretty tough out there, and I’m just not used to hitting off Bermuda grass,” said Taylor. “I finished off so bad. I think I finished double, double, bogie, triple, double on the last five holes. It was a mess. I just blew up.

“It was just the small stuff that I was messing up. I just couldn’t hit an iron, really that’s just all there is to it. If I hit a fairway, I wouldn’t hit a green. I was chunking everything. The ground’s wet and it’s Bermuda grass, so I was just deep swinging and catching everything fat.”

The senior had made it to states when he posted a 79 at the west regionals a month ago.

“I’m really glad I got to come here in the first place; it’s awesome,” Taylor said. “The course is really nice.It’s in good shape too besides it being wet today. I’m really glad I got to come here and play, it was fun.”

Lewis finished just behind Taylor by going 16-over (87) and also had a rough time down the stretch as he double bogeyed two of his last five holes.

“I played OK. I could’ve done a lot better,” Lewis said. “Wind, just specifically the swirling of the wind, I didn’t know what club to hit at times. I couldn’t really make a decision.

“It’s a learning experience. I want to improve everything about my game. … It’s an honor to be with seniors (Taylor and Darian Bauer). Darian’s the best in the region, so it’s an honor to be here with them as a freshman.”

Bauer, the senior from Allegany, won the 1A/2A regional title and advanced to Day 2 on Wednesday.

The top 40% of individual male and female competitors advanced to the Day 2 Finals, as well as those who tied with the cutoff score.

>Wins Gold At States

>

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Jun. 2, 2011

Northern High School’s Chelsi Kling is Garrett County’s newest state champion, having captured first place in the girls’ long jump event at the Maryland 1A State Track and Field Championships this past weekend. Her winning leap of 17 feet, 5½ inches is also a new record for Northern High, as is her triple jump distance of 30 feet, ½ inch, which was good for sixth place at the state event. Kling and three teammates, pictured in the sports section, also placed fifth in the girls’ 400-meter relay event, and Northern’s Eric Maxim finished sixth in the boys’ 110-meter hurdles. Southern High School’s Mikey Skipper placed seventh in the 110 hurdles.

Read more here.

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>NHS Musicians Shine In Chicago

>

The Northern Garrett High School stage band, concert band, and choruses recently competed in the Heritage Music Festival in Chicago, and brought home an impressive lot of gold and silver trophies, as well as ratings of Superior and Excellent from the judges. The teenagers, teachers, and chaperones also toured a number of historic sites and museums while in the Windy City, and met other musicians from across the United States and Canada. The band students are directed by Duane Salisbury, and the choruses are led by Debi Beachy. See story for complete details. The combined group of instrumentalists and singers, as well as chaperones, are pictured above at the time of their performances in Chicago.

Read more here.

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If you or someone you know is considering buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! I take great pride in referrals, and I assure you, I will take great care of your friends, family & colleagues! As member of the Garrett County Board of Realtors, I can assist you with ANY listed property, regardless of the listing broker.

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>Northern Huskies selected unanimous Area champions

>Finish year with 23-5 record, trip to Maryland Class 1A finals
Chris Appel
Cumberland Times-News The Cumberland Times-News Sat Apr 30, 2011, 11:41 PM EDT

ACCIDENT — Fifty games, 42 wins, one state runner-up, one conference championship and now a second Times-News Girls Basketball Area Championship. If someone would have told Northern High School Head Coach Steve Fratz two years ago that he would have done all of those things in just two seasons he may not have believed you.

But he wouldn’t have called you crazy.

Fratz saw the foundation for all of this success back when his seniors from this past season were in middle school.

“When the girls were in 6th grade we won the Tri-County 7th grade championship, and won again when they were in 8th grade,”  Fratz said.

“(Assistant Coach) Pete (Brosnihan) and I knew we had a special trio at that time, however, a lot of stuff could happen over the course of their high school careers.”

A lot of stuff did happen during their careers — mostly good. Their high school careers will also end on a high note as Northern was unanimously selected as the Cumberland Times-News Area champion by the four reporters of the Times-News Sports Department.

It’s not uncharted territory for the Huskies as they shared the spotlight last season with Allegany. This season Northern ended the Campers season with a 72-57 win in the Maryland 1A West Region Semifinals, giving the Huskies a 2-1 record in the three games the schools played.

The Campers, after two years as outright Area champs and a year sharing the title with Northern, finished second in the final poll. Frankfort pulled in third place, while Southern edged Mountain Ridge for fourth.

This season saw Northern get off to a rougher start than they hoped after it was looking at a 1-1 record following a loss to Keyser. It would be one of only two losses to local teams the Huskies would experience.

Aside from a 65-46 loss to Allegany during the teams’ first meeting, the only trouble that Northern would run into until the finals was in the form of University High School from Morgantown.

That trouble, according to Fratz, was a planned test for his team.

“The preparation for this year started last season when we dropped Union from our schedule and added road trips to Winters Mill and Musselman.

“We needed to face tougher competition to make us battle tested,” he said. “This season we dropped Salisbury for perennial powerhouse University just to let the girls see what it will take to compete down the road. We even changed our Holiday Tournament to South Hagerstown and stayed overnight so we could simulate how to prepare playing on consecutive nights.”

While making the schedule rougher, Fratz took a much softer approach with his players than he may have last season.

“I became more accepting of mistakes and miscues,” he said. “It is part of the game and instead of being upset and frustrated, even though it is tough at times, I tried to figure out how not to make the same mistake twice and to use it as teaching moments.”

Fratz also went with a more hands off approach in his teaching.

“I put more responsibility on the players for them to execute our offense and communicate to each other with defensive recognition, which in return, limited me ‘barking’ orders from the sideline. I had the luxury of having the best point guard in the area as she initiated the offense and every girl knew their responsibility and what was expected of them.”

Fratz’s daughter Kaitlynn, a senior, was the engine that ran his machine these past two seasons.

An incredible scorer, Kaitlynn not only was in a class of her own when it came to her scoring average this past season, but has scored more points than any other player, male or female, in the history of Garrett County basketball.

It would have been hard enough to deal with Northern if all teams had to do was deal with Kaitlynn, but the Huskies could throw another marksman at the opposition in Terra McKenzie. Despite missing her sophomore season because of a knee injury, McKenzie has given the Huskies two straight selections to the Appalachian Mountain Athletic Conference team.

Coach Fratz, whose only other senior player was Morgan Brosnihan, knew that it would be his seniors that would need to buy into his changes in order for the rest of the team to follow.

“After last year’s emotional defeat to Southern in the playoffs, I prepared differently whether it was practice or game strategies,” he said. “I still had confidence in our coaching philosophies, but more importantly I had confidence in our senior leaders. All three of the seniors bought into the idea that they cannot do the same old, same old to get where they dreamt about for the last five seasons.”

The dream started when Coach Fratz took his three seniors, then 8th graders, to watch Southern’s girls in the Maryland 1A Championship game.

It ended with an 80-62 loss to Dunbar in the state finals in this year’s 1A championship.

“We may have lost, but my favorite memory as a coach is the feeling I had watching the girls take the floor at the state championship,” Fratz said. “It gave me goose bumps thinking of how far we came and how we were living the dream.”

It was a dream the Huskies shared with the community that so rabidly supported them.

“I really believe the younger kids, including elementary age girls, got caught up in this special season. This team was like rock stars as young girls got giddy just to come up to talk to them. Entire elementary classes sent individual well wishes when we were headed to states, and youth players were ecstatic when they got one of the senior’s number on their team jersey.”

The excitement this season created may be what people remember of it years from now, but Fratz also hopes the girls are remembered for how they played as well as what they accomplished.

“We have been labeled overachievers. That may be, but I feel that with the work ethic that these girls had that anything was possible. The legacy that will be left behind will be that they played with heart, they played with passion and they never gave up.”

Chris Appel is a reporter for the Cumberland Times-News. Write to him at cappel@times-news.com

If you or someone you know is considering buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! I take great pride in referrals, and I assure you, I will take great care of your friends, family & colleagues! As member of the Garrett County Board of Realtors, I can assist you with ANY listed property, regardless of the listing broker.

877-563-5350 Questions about ANY listed property? I can help! Call me!
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estate, community, info, more! 1,750+ members & growing!

>Win or lose, it was icing on the cake for Northern

>Mike Mathews
Cumberland Times-News The Cumberland Times-News Mon Mar 14, 2011, 08:01 AM EDT

— They knew what was coming but this time couldn’t stop it.

It was a pretty helpless feeling Saturday night for the Northern Huskies, whose history-making season ended in an 80-62 loss to Dunbar in the Class 1A girls basketball state championship game.

All year long the tough, talented but vertically-challenged Huskies found a way to make up for the only item lacking on their resume.

But Dunbar, with 5-foot-9 junior Michelle Wright and 6-foot-3 senior Oma-ah Tayong, was too tall an order.

The size of Wright (40 points, 21 rebounds) and Tayong (19 points, 15 rebounds) was one thing. Their strength and athleticism made the Poets (20-4) too much to handle, not just for Northern (23-5) but for just about everyone on their schedule. In the two state tournament games they combined for 100 points and 59 rebounds.

Wright’s 40-point game was the fifth-highest total in state tournament history, and eight points shy of the championship game record set by Loch Raven’s Janet Flora 35 years ago.

“Michelle Wright … she’s a stud, and plays so hard. We had no answer for her,’’ admitted Northern coach Steve Fratz. “And they throw in a 6-3 girl in there, too … it made it pretty difficult.”

The Poets took advantage of the mismatch all night, often lobbing passes over the Huskies defense for easy shots at the low post.

“We knew their high-low game was their bread and butter,’’ Fratz said. “Wright is so active and moves well without the ball. She’s very strong and a very good leaper.”

The Huskies pretty much matched the Poets in scoring (Dunbar, 21-18) and rebounding (Dunbar, 8-6) in the first quarter, but the Poets out-rebounded the Huskies 13-3 in the second quarter, and the numbers didn’t get any better in the second half.

“The big people we’ve played this year were not as athletic as the ones Dunbar had,’’ said Northern forward Morgan Brosnihan. “And they had more big people than we’re used to seeing.”

Still, the Huskies were well within striking distance at halftime, down by 42-33.

“We thought we could come back by playing hard, pushing and pressuring the ball, and boxing out’’ said guard Terra McKenzie. “That was the attitude at halftime.”

But it wasn’t to be. Dunbar ended up with a 50-21 edge in rebounds, and had 24 offensive rebounds to only five for Northern.

“We played a complete game … two halves of basketball,’’ said Dunbar coach Wardell Selby. “We had been playing only one half. We knew we wanted to get the ball inside and we kept pounding and pounding it inside. With the height we had, we thought we could wear them down.”

It comes so abruptly, the end of a season does, that it doesn’t seem fair. Only one of the 50 Class 1A teams wins its final game, and this year it was Dunbar.

Northern needed a perfect game Saturday, and nothing less. It didn’t happen.

The Huskies went the first 4:55 of the second half without a field goal, and two starters picked up their fourth fouls.

For the Huskies, one Fratz on the sideline is good. Two, not so good. But that was the case when Kaitlynn picked up her fifth foul with 7:12 to go. It was the first time she had fouled out all season.

“They play a high pressure defense, and our shots weren’t falling. Even our foul shots weren’t,” said Kaitlynn Fratz, whose 2,103 career points is a school and Garrett County record.

Northern, one of the top foul shooting teams in the area, shot 10-for-19 from the line over the first three quarters, and finished 18-for-31.

Fratz, McKenzie and Brosnihan, Northern’s seniors, helped lift the program to new heights during their careers.

“Since the sixth grade we’ve accomplished an awful lot,’’ said McKenzie. “From youth league championships to the AMAC … it’s been a great ride.”

It was more than just the Huskies that made the state tournament. Their vocal throng of fans didn’t disappoint, either.

“We beat Allegany, we beat Smithsburg, we beat tough teams and there is nothing much more you can ask for,” Kaitlynn Fratz said. “It’s been great. Our fans were great, even when we were getting beat by 20 they never stopped.”

“Our home games … You kind of got a taste of it by the crowd we had here. Our home games are crazy, and they were great experiences. It was an awesome trip and we had a great time. We fell a little short, but we are the second team in Northern history to do this so it feels pretty great.”

“When these girls were sixth graders we came here to see our county rival (Southern) win the state championship (in 2004). Ever since then, that’s been our goal,” Coach Fratz said of a championship.

The 23 wins were the most of any Northern basketball team, boys or girls. Kaitlynn Fratz finished No. 1 in career scoring, McKenzie is No. 2 in career three-point goals and Brosnihan No. 3 in career foul shooting.

“This is a record-setting squad and I could go on and on and on,’’ coach Fratz said. “To get here was icing on the cake, win or lose.”

Mike Mathews is a Cumberland Times-News sportswriter. Write to him at mmathews@times-news.com

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

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>Huskies Going To States

>

In a dramatic come-from-behind win at Frederick Community College on Saturday, the Northern High School girls’ basketball team defeated Smithsburg, 52-47, to claim the West Region Championship. The team, seen here in jubilation just seconds after the final buzzer, celebrated by cutting down the net. The win places the Huskies among the final four teams in the state. The Northern squad begins State Tournament play tomorrow at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Tip-off is set for 9 p.m. Photo by Bob Carney.

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>Huskies hunting for first state title

>By Chris Appel, Cumberland Times-News, Md.
March 11–BALTIMORE — The calm before the storm has ended for the Northern girls basketball team, when after one of the more emotional weeks in program history the Lady Huskies resume their quest for their first ever Maryland state title when they take the court tonight at 9 p.m. to face Mardella in the Maryland 1A State Tournament semifinal at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

The Huskies (22-4) are coming off a week that saw them avenge a loss to Southern in the West Section semifinals on Tuesday, March 1, beat defending section champ Allegany on Thursday, March 3 and beat the reigning West Region champ Smithsburg on Saturday. They have now had five days off.

Mardella, which made it to the first round of last year’s state tournament before being bounced, beat Pocomoke 59-43 to repeat as as East Region champs.

“They are an extremely athletic team that likes to run up and down the floor,” said Northern head coach Steve Fratz. “They aren’t a big three-point shooting team, but they will shoot jump shots. And they are tough on the boards. They just crash down hard on every shot.”

The Warriors (25-1) have been rolling through competition this season, winning most of their games by a heavy margin. Fratz, whose Huskies have been involved in much closer contests during the playoffs, is hoping that fact has readied his team while leaving Mardella unprepared.

Northern’s playoffs began with an easy win over Clear Spring, but was followed by another Garrett County battle with Southern.

During the 2010 sectional quarterfinals, Northern, which had beat Southern the two times the teams played during the regular season, were upset by the Rams, 50-45. This year’s quarterfinals had the Huskies enter with two previous wins over the Rams, but this time they avoided the “trap” and rallied from a halftime deficit to win 52-44.

Kaitlynn Fratz scored 24 points, including the 2,000th of her career, and Terra McKenzie added 17 points and seven rebounds as the Huskies got their sixth win in the last eight meetings with the Rams.

Southern got out to a 24-19 lead after one half, but Northern matched the 19 points it scored in the first half with 19 more in the third quarter to lead 38-32 going into the fourth.

“We did not want to lose to Southern,” Fratz stated. “They embarrassed us last year during the same game, and I think because of how much we wanted to win we put some undo pressure on ourselves early on.”

The sectional final put the Huskies into a rubber match with the Campers after the teams spilt the pair of regular season contests. In what has been the best rivalry in the area the past couple of seasons, Northern raced out of the gates to take a 21-16 lead by the end of the first quarter, and extended its lead at halftime to 12 points (38-26).

The score was 53-40 early on in the fourth, but Allegany would get no closer than 57-50 with 3:38 remaining and the Huskies would win by the final of 72-57.

Fratz scored another 24 points, Morgan Brosnihan added 23 and Allison Yommer and Terra McKenzie combined to score another 20, to lead Northern to its first-ever win at Allegany.

“After beating Southern and getting the huge win against Allegany I was a little concerned about Smithsburg. Having gone through the games we just did and then having to travel to Frederick to play a tough team I was a little worried we’d be worn out.”

The first half against the Leopards show that Coach Fratz may have right. Northern shot just 8-for-26 during the first half, and trailed by as many as eight points in the first two quarters.

Things began to change when the Huskies started the third quarter on a 6-1 run to tie the score at 28, and kept it close for the remainder of the third.

McKenzie, who had been dealing with foul trouble, was huge for the Huskies in the fourth quarter, picking up Northern’s last 10 points of the game. She was 5-for-6 from the foul line down the stretch and finished with a total of 20 points.

Kaitlynn Fratz lead her team with 25 points.

This is the second time that a Northern team has advanced to the state tournament. The Huskies reached to the finals in 1997 before losing to Francis Scott Key 53-23.

Mardela is led by a trio of seniors: Aleshia Hoobs, Jasmine Jones and Taylor Siggers. The girls combined to score 48 of the Warriors’ 59 points in the win over Pocomoke. Siggers had 24 of them.

“They have some size on the inside with a 5-foot-11 girl who can also move well in the paint. Their best player is 5-10 and drives hard to the rim, pushes the ball on the fastbreak and likes to pull up on the baseline with a nice little jumper,” said Coach Fratz.

The coach does see areas where he thinks the Huskies can take advantage of match-ups.

“They can play an aggressive man-to-man defense if you are a good shooting team, but they don’t do it very often. If they want to pack it in with a zone and we can hit our shots we can do some damage. There could be a favorable pairing on some of their guards, too. Again, if we hit our shots early on it could open some chances to drive.”

As of Thursday night the Northern coach still wasn’t sure if any of it was actually happening tonight.

“I have to keep pinching myself. We took the three seniors (Kaitlynn Fratz, McKenzie and Brosnihan) down to see Southern in the state tournament when the girls were in sixth grade, and it’s been their dream ever since then to play there. To know we’ll be there on that same court six years later… It just doesn’t seem real.”

It all becomes real tonight at 9 p.m.

Chris is a reporter for the Cumberland Times-News. Write to him at cappel@times-news.com

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

Deep Creek Do It All specializes in cleaning services in Garrett County & @ Deep Creek Lake. Give them a call (301-501-0217) or visit the website – competitive rates and quality results from a locally owned & operated company!

Garrett reconsidering policy allowing students to go to school in Allegany

Board also expects to take up futures of 7 southern elementary facilities

Megan Miller
Cumberland Times-News

OAKLAND — A few major changes could be coming for Garrett County public schools, as the board of education considers ways to cut spending in the face of state funding reductions.

About 40 students take advantage of a policy that allows Garrett children living in specific parts of the county to attend school across the county line at nearby Allegany facilities, rather than travel farther from home to Garrett schools.

Board member James Raley said the policy has been in place since the consolidated Northern Garrett High School was built in the 1950s, to spare students in northeastern parts of the county from long commutes in the days before Interstate 68 was built.

But Superintendent Wendell Teets said the school board is considering changing the policy because declining enrollment and other factors have reduced the school system’s state funding, leaving the system to wrestle with a significant budget shortfall.

“We pay tuition and provide transportation for those students to go to Allegany County schools,” Teets said. “Ultimately, by changing this policy, we would eliminate the busing expenses, the payments to Allegany, and gain state aid by keeping those students in Garrett schools. So that’s a significant amount of funding.”

The proposed change would still allow students in grades six and above who already attend Allegany schools to continue through graduation. It would also allow their younger siblings to attend an Allegany school if they’d be in the same building as the older sibling. New students who move into Garrett County would not be eligible to attend an Allegany school, regardless of their grade level.

On March 2, the board will hold a 7 p.m. meeting at Northern Middle School in Accident to hear input from the public on the change. Teets said he expects that to be the only such meeting held before the board makes its final decision on the policy change.

In the coming months, the board will also consider the futures of seven elementary schools in the southern part of the county. Changes there could mean renovations for some schools and closures for others.

“We need to take a hard look at our budget, enrollment and facility capacities and make some decisions on the most effective use of our resources,” Teets said.

A committee will be formed to study all seven schools, the board decided in its Monday meeting. Teets said the board will make a final decision on the committee formation in March, but it will probably include members of the public as well as school officials. The committee’s study will likely go on for several months.

“The study committee will take an objective look at what’s happening and make recommendations,” Teets said. Any changes suggested by the study committee would then be studied by another committee at each individual school.

“In these hard economic times we have to look at programs to support schools in our county,” Teets said. “And we need to protect our programs in Garrett County.”

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Long & Foster Real Estate for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350