Vaughan
started every game in his four seasons at Gettysburg, going 63-13. He
is the first Gettysburg goalie to ever win more than 50 career games,
and he ranks second in Gettysburg history and third in Centennial
Conference (CC) history in saves with 724.  A two-time CC Player of the
Year and four-time all-conference selection, Vaughan led the conference
in goals against average three times, and led the nation with a 5.32
goals against average in 2006. That mark entered this season as the
seventh-best in Division III history.

This season, he again
paced the nation in goals against average at 4.95, which is fifth in
Division III history, and backboned a defense that tied for seventh in
the history of NCAA Division III menâ??s lacrosse. He played nearly 96
percent of the minutes in goal for Gettysburg, going 16-3. Vaughan was
named the CC Defensive Player of the Week and ECAC Division III South
Goalie of the Week once this season, and he was named to the Tewaaraton
Trophy Watch List.  The Tewaaraton Trophy recognizes the top male and
female collegiate varsity lacrosse player in the United States.

Joining
Vaughan on the Centennial first-team this year is Boys’ Latin graduate
Chris Read, a junior attackman at Washington College, who was also a
honorable mention All-American selection.  Like Vaughan, Read is
two-time first-team pick.

This spring he led the Shoremen with 31 goals and 51 points and he tied for the , team lead with 20 assists.

The
Centennial Conference bestowed post-season honors to two other former
MIAA stars and both have a connection to Read.  Jim Kielek, Read’s team
at Washington, is a sophomore attackman from Archbishop Curley, and a
second-team all-conference choice.  Also making the second-team is
Dickinson senior attackman Drew Peace, who played with Read at Boys’
Latin.

Heading the list are Loyola junior Steele
Stanwick, who led the Dons to the MIAA A Conference title last month
and is considered by many as a leading candidate for Baltimore are
Player of the Year honors, and Boys’ Latin senior Travis Reed, a
four-year star with two league championships to his credit.

Also honored by U.S. Lacrosse were Brett Weiss of Boys’ Latin, Chris Clements of St. Paul’s and Andrew Feinberg of McDonogh.

Yermal, who is 6′-7″ and
200-pounds, was also an All-MIAA selection in basketball, but baseball
is his first love.  This season he batted .436 with six home runs and
20 RBI.  He also posted a .567 on base percentage and stuck out just
eight times in 55 at bats.  He is also a dominate pitcher whose
performance this spring was far better than his 3-4 record would
indicate.  Over 43.1 innings, Yermal pitched to an excellent 2.89 ERA
and recorded 44 strikeouts.

Prior to the start of the season,
Yermal accepted a full scholarship to the University of North Carolina
at Charlotte, but he is also a candidate to be selected in professional
baseball amateur draft which will take place in June.  Yermal has said
that it his dream to play professional baseball and he would love to
follow in the footsteps of his former McDonogh teammate Brandon Erbe,
who is one of the top minor league pitching prospects for the Baltimore
Orioles.

“Joe is the ultimate team player,” said McDonogh head
coach Ian Hendricks, who is the son of the late Oriole legend Elrod
Hendricks.  “He is the guy you want at the plate in a key situation. 
He’s also like having another coach on the field.  He has the ability
to understand it in many different situations.  You can’t teach that. 
He’s a one-of-kind talent.”

Boys’ Latin leads the way with two All-American
selections in defenseman Alex Lyons and attackman Travis Reed.  Lyons
has been a stalwart member of the BL defense, which was a key element
in its run to the 2006 MIAA A Conference title.  He will attend
Bucknell University in the fall.  Reed actually began his career at
McDonogh and was an important cog in the Eagles’ 2005 title run.  He
came to BL as a junior and won a second championship and is widely
recognized as one of the top three players in the Baltimore area.  He
will play at Maryland next year.

Tim Donovan, an offensive
minded middie, who had many big scoring days during Loyola’s charge to
this year’s A Conference crown, is also on the team.  In the fall,
Donovan will begin his college career at Johns Hopkins where he will
play for the recently crowned national champion Blue Jays.

Also
representing the MIAA on the South team are two Virginia recruits â??
Nick Elsmo of Severn and Chris Clements of St. Paul’s.   Elsmo, one of
the best three-sport athletes in Severn history, is a do-everything
type of player, who kept the Admirals competitive over the last two
years and Clements led St. Paul’s with 45 goals in season in which the
Crusaders spent several weeks as the area’s top ranked team.

The
final MIAA pick was Andrew Feinberg of McDonogh.  Feinberg, who is also
an outstanding football player, has one of the hardest shots in the
country and he was the leading scorer in the MIAA this year.  He will
play for Brown University in 2008.

Several other MIAA players
are expected to participate in the UA Underclassmen Game, which feature
Baltimore All-Stars against a team of Washington All-Stars.  The
rosters for those teams should be announced in the next week.

In
a press release issued this morning, Calvert Hall has announced the
resignation of long-time head basketball coach Mark Amatucci, who won
389 games and a national championship over the course of 19 seasons
with the Towson school.  Those 19 years were spread over two stints
with the first beginning in 1977.

The release mentioned no reason for the decision, but in an article in today’s Baltimore Sun
Amatucci was quoted as saying, “I need to get away from it after 32
years.  There have been a lot of twists and turns and in my point of
view this is a good time to step down.”

Amatucci’s association
with Calvert Hall actually began as a student and he graduated from the
school in 1970.  From there he attended Juniata College (PA) and played
basketball, but he returned to Calvert Hall, after his college
graduation, as a teacher and a coach.  He led the school’s freshman
team for one year, the junior varsity for one year and took over the
reigns of the varsity team prior to the 1977-78 season.

In his
third season, Calvert Hall won its first Baltimore Catholic League
basketball title under Amatucci and his 1981-82 squad went 34-0 and won
the mythical national high school championship.  His first departure
from Calvert Hall came after that magical season and ironically this
move comes following a season in which the national championship team
reunited at Calvert Hall to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its
historic achievement.

His second stint at Calvert Hall began in
1993 and included 272 wins over the last 14 years.  His teams produced
41 players who went on to play college basketball and two â?? Duane
Ferrell ’84 and Juan Dixon ’97 – who would go on to play in the NBA. 
Ferrell was a member of the national championship team and after
brilliant college career at Georgia Tech, he went on to play more than
a decade in the NBA.  Dixon, of course, led the University of Maryland
to a national championship and is in his fifth NBA season.

In
all, Amatucci won three BCL regular season titles, three BCL
tournaments, two championships in the Maryland Scholastic Association
and the 1995-96 MIAA A Conference title, the first one ever awarded.

In
1983, Amatucci became the head basketball coach and assistant athletic
director at Loyola College and in his second season he turned a
perennial Division I loser into a winning program and earned ECAC Metro
Coach of the Year honors in 1984.  However, the difficulty of
attracting top recruits and maintaining success at a mid-major program,
in that era, eventually wore on Amatucci and he left the school after
just six seasons.

After three years out of the game, he
resurfaced at Anne Arundel Community College, as head coach in 1990 and
led that program for two years.  In 1992, he spent one season as an
assistant coach at Washington College in Chestertown before returning
to Calvert Hall in 1993.

Yesterday, in the championship
game of the 2007 NCAA Lacrosse Tournament at Baltimore’s M&T Bank
Stadium, Huntley scored three of the biggest goals of his career,
including the game winner, with 3:25 left in the contest, as Hopkins
held off Duke, 12-11, to claim its ninth NCAA crown.

Huntley was
just one of three former MIAA stars who contributed to yesterday’s win,
but his final goal helped a reeling Blue Jay squad regroup and fend off
a Duke team that dominated the second half.

On the play, Paul
Rabil (one goal and five assists) scooped a loose ball and created
space for Huntley with an excellent entry pass near the Duke crease and
the former Cardinal took it from there.  One-on-one with Duke
goalkeeper Dan Loftus, Huntley moved Loftus with a flash toward the top
right corner before dropping his stick and softly flipping the ball
into the left side of the cage.

Hopkins, which was a long shot
to even make the tournament after a three game losing streak in April,
which included an 11-9 home loss to Duke, came in as the underdog but
took charge early.

The Blue Jays scored off the opening face-off
and roared out to a 10-4 halftime lead.  Duke, however, scored the
first five goals of the second half and eventually tied the contest at
11 with 4:37 to play.  The Blue Devils sent a couple of other shots off
the pipe and appeared poised to race past the Blue Jays to avenge their
one goal loss to Hopkins in the 2005 title game.  But, Huntley’s score
slowed the charge and the Hopkins’ defense closed out the win.

Another
MIAA player, junior defender Eric Zerrlaut, from St. Mary’s, received
high praise for his work on Duke star Zack Greer.  Zerrlaut limited
Greer to just a single assist.  Zerrlaut, who red-shirted during his
first year at Hopkins and graduated this spring, will return next year
while pursuing a graduate degree.

Also back next year will be
freshman attacker Michael Kimmel, from Loyola.  Kimmel did not score
yesterday, despite two on-target rockets that were saved, but his
hat-trick was a big factor in Hopkins’ 8-4 semifinal win over Delaware,
on Saturday.

Five other former MIAA players also earned national
championship rings with the Blue Jays yesterday and all five will
return next year.  This list includes brothers Nolan (Jr., G) and
Nathan Matthews (Fr., A) from St. Paul’s, Garrett Stanwick (Jr., M)
from St. Mary’s, Chris Boland (Fr., A) from Boys’ Latin and Eric Dang
(Fr., LSM) from Friends.

The
Cardinals, who moved up from the ninth position, are the only
undefeated team in the poll and have now won 37 consecutive games,
dating back to last season.  If they can win their 2008 season opener,
they will match the 38 game winning streak shared by the 2005 and 2006
teams.

In 2005, Calvert Hall lost its first game and then closed
the year with 31 consecutive wins to establish state records for most
wins in a season and most consecutive wins.  This year’s team broke
both of those records.

In 2006, Calvert Hall opened the year
with seven straight wins, but eventually lost eight times and finished
third in the regular season standings.  In the playoffs, however, the
Cardinals overcame a first-round loss to defeat Gilman twice in the
finals and earn their second straight league title.  That team finished
27-8.

This spring the Cardinals will graduate some stars,
including outfielder Reid Chenworth and first-baseman Jeff Guthridge,
but the roster remains loaded for another run next spring.  Returning
will be pitching ace Michael Dillon, who threw a shutout in last week’s
championship game, slugger Kevin Lingerman, an excellent pitcher and
third-baseman, and the MIAA’s top leadoff hitter in shortstop Patrick
Blair.

Michael Fader of McDonogh registered the
low score for the MIAA, as he shot a 76.  Roger Waesche of Loyola and
Zach Pfinsgraff of Severn each followed with scores of 79, while
Calvert Hall’s Pat Moxley shot an 80 and Doug Williams of Gilman came
in a t 82.

Also representing the MIAA in the event were Evan
Kilchenstein of Archbishop Curley, Robert Merkert of Archbishop
Spalding and Nick Ferris of Loyola.

Zarchin, a
senior from St. Mary’s, is the starting goalkeeper for the Sea Gulls
and he stopped 12 shots in the victory, as he helped Salisbury cap and
undefeated season (22-0) and capture its third national crown in the
last four years.  Zarchin started all 23 games this year and earned
honorable-mention All-American honors.  He allowed just 93 goals for a
goals against average of 5.4 and made 134 saves on the year.

Hartzell,
also a senior, is a long stick middie out of Archbishop Curley, who
came to Salisbury after a brilliant junior college career at
CCBC-Essex.  A third-team All-American pick this year, Hartzell was
singled out by his head coach for his excellent defensive work on
Cortland’s top scorer, Ryan Heath, in yesterday’s final.

Hartzell,
who forced five turnovers and had six ground balls yesterday, held
Heath, who came into the contest with 82 points and 50 goals, scoreless
in the national championship game.  For the year, he was third on the
team with 86 ground balls and he had two assists.

Junior
attackman Greg Baggan, from Boys’ Latin, is another former MIAA player
who contributed heavily to Salisbury’s big year.  Baggan, who did not
score yesterday, finished the season with 27 points, on 13 goals and 14
assists.  He also won 17 ground balls.

In addition, senior
defenseman Mike Edwards, a co-captain from Calvert Hall, appeared in
all 23 games and made 17 starts.  He had 75 ground balls and was very
effective in the transition offense, netting two goals and handing out
eight assists, including one yesterday.   Edwards’ Calvert Hall
teammate Ryan Browning is also a key performer for the Gulls.  Playing
in all 23 games, mostly as a reserve, Browning scooped 53 ground balls,
added two goals and two assists, and played excellent defense.

Debuting
with the Salisbury dynasty this spring were also two freshman from the
MIAA.  Midfielders Will Poletis of Loyola and Brenden Ryan of Calvert
Hall combined for 19 appearances, as well as four goals and two assists.

Junior All-American Kevin Huntley, a graduate of Calvert Hall, is one of eight former MIAA players playing for Johns Hopkins and one of 18 that will play in the Final Four this weekend at M&T Bank Stadium.

by Gary Adornato

The
NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Final Four returns to Baltimore this weekend and
with it, as usual, will come several former MIAA stars, all seeking to
win a national championship on their home turf.

Of course, the
largest contingent will be a group which has never left town, but
instead have cast their talents locally with Johns Hopkins, the
nation’s most storied college program.

The Blue Jays feature
eight MIAA players on their roster, led by All-American Kevin Huntley,
a junior attackman from Calvert Hall.  Huntley, who broke all types of
scoring records during his sensational MIAA career and led Hopkins in
scoring last year, matched a career high with five goals and six points
in last weekend’s 14-6 quarterfinal win over Georgetown.

The
performance was a welcome sign for Hopkins and Huntley, who has seen
his scoring dip a bit this spring.  He now has 19 goals and nine
assists.

Also making a major impact is freshman attackman
Michael Kimmel, from Loyola, who has scored 20 goals and dished out
seven assists in his rookie year, and senior Eric Zerrlaut, from St.
Mary’s, who has started all 15 games and played a major role for the
Hopkins’ defense.

The other MIAA players on the Blue Jay roster
include brothers Nolan (Jr., G) and Nathan Matthews (Fr., A) from St.
Paul’s, Garrett Stanwick (Jr., M) from St. Mary’s, Chris Boland (Fr.,
A) from Boys’ Latin and Eric Dang (Fr., LSM) from Friends.

Hopkins
will face Delaware on Saturday and the Cinderella Blue Hens have also
dipped into the MIAA talent pool and now have six of the league’s
former players on their roster.

The leader of this group is
junior goalkeeper Tommy Scherr from Mount St. Joseph.  Scherr has
started all 18 games for Delaware this year and has recorded 175 saves,
as well as a 7.8 goals against average.

Also playing key roles
are Alex Smith, a senior midfielder from Boys’ Latin, and Evan
Crowther-Washburn, a junior defender from Severn.  Smith is the team’s
top face-off guy and has won 304-of-415 draws (.733), while adding five
goals and three assists.  Crowther-Washburn has started all 18 games
and has contributed 29 ground balls and two assists.

Midfielder
D.J. Widlake, from St. Joe, has netted three goals and an assist as a
freshman, while junior midfielder Drew Turner, from Severn, has
appeared in 15 games, with two starts, and has 39 ground balls and one
assist.  In addition, freshman midfielder Andrew Reinhardt, from
Calvert Hall, has appeared in two games.

Cornel, which is not a
traditional destination for MIAA players, does boast three players from
the nation’s top prep league on this years roster.  The group includes
freshman midfielder Austin Boykin from St. Paul’s, sophomore attackman
Christian Pastirik from St. Mary’s and sophomore midfielder Rocco
Romero from Boys’ Latin.

Romero has had the biggest impact this
year, as he has scored nine goals and added six assists, while Pastirik
has had five points, inclcuding four goals.

Of course, Cornel
will face top-seeded Duke in Saturday’s other semifinal.  The Blue
Devils, who are attempting to rise from the depths of last year’s now
dismissed rape scandal, have just one former MIAA player on their
roster â?? senior midfielder Ed Douglas from Gilman.