D6
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KLMNO
SOCCER
United is looking for goals, not style points
In 0-5 start to season, D.C. has managed to score just twice
by Steven Goff
D.C. United’s aim has been not only to win, but also to do it in a certain style and grace reflecting its championship campaigns dur- ing MLS’s formative years. Club officials shudder at the idea of employing cynical, defen- sive tactics in order to grind out results. For the betterment of the young league, they argue, teams should forge an entertaining brand, and if the outcome doesn’t always go their way, so be it. After losing its first five match-
es this season and scoring just two goals, however, United is in
HOCKEY
PLAYOFF SCHEDULE AND SUMMARIES
Conference Semifinals
EASTERN CONFERENCE
Pittsburgh 2, Montreal 1
Game 1: at Pittsburgh 6, Montreal 3 Game 2: Montreal 3, at Pittsburgh 1 Tuesday: Pittsburgh 2, at Montreal 0 Thursday: Pittsburgh at Montreal, 7 Saturday: Montreal at Pittsburgh, 7 x-Monday, May 10: Pittsburgh at Montreal, 7 x-Wed., May 12: Montreal at Pittsburgh, TBD
Boston 2, Philadelphia 0
Game 1: at Boston 5, Philadelphia 4 (OT) Game 2: at Boston 3, Philadelphia 2 Wednesday: Boston at Philadelphia, 7 Friday: Boston at Philadelphia, 7 x-Monday: Philadelphia at Boston, 7 x-Wed., May 12: Boston at Philadelphia, TBD x-Friday, May 14: Philadelphia at Boston, 7
WESTERN CONFERENCE
Vancouver 1, Chicago 1
Game 1: Vancouver 5, at Chicago 1 Game 2: at Chicago 4, Vancouver 2 Wednesday: Chicago at Vancouver, 9:30 Friday: Chicago at Vancouver, 9:30 Sunday: Vancouver at Chicago, 8 x-Tuesday: Chicago at Vancouver, 9:30 x-Thursday, May 13: Vancouver at Chicago, 8
San Jose 3, Detroit 0
Game 1: at San Jose 4, Detroit 3 Game 2: at San Jose 4, Detroit 3 Tuesday: San Jose 4, at Detroit 3 (OT) Thursday: San Jose at Detroit, 7:30 x-Saturday: Detroit at San Jose, 10 x-Monday, May 10: San Jose at Detroit, 7:30 x-Wed., May 12: Detroit at San Jose, TBD
(x-if necessary)
PENGUINS 2, CANADIENS 0
Evgeni Malkin scored a power-play goal 1 minute 16 seconds into the third period and Marc-Andre Fleury made 18 saves for his fourth NHL playoff shutout, lifting Pittsburgh over Montreal for a 2-1 series lead. Malkin took Sergei Gonchar’s pass
and fired a one-timer from the right side past Jaroslav Halak to give the Penguins a 1-0 edge. Pascal Dupuis scored into an emp- ty net with 15 seconds remaining to seal the victory.
Fleury slid across to make a left pad stop on Michael Cammalleri’s shot from the right side with 7:33 remain- ing. He stuck out his right pad to thwart Tomas Plekanec’s redirection on Cammalleri’s centering feed dur- ing a Canadiens power play late in the third. It was Fleury’s first playoff shut- out since a 6-0 win over Philadelphia on May 18, 2008. Pittsburgh outshot Montreal 25-18,
including 13-3 in the second. Halak stopped 23 shots for the Ca- nadiens, who have lost seven of eight playoff games at home, including three of four this year.
SCORING
Pittsburgh ................................ 0 0 2 — 2 Montreal ................................... 0 0 0 — 0
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: 1, Pittsburgh, Malkin 5 (Gonchar, Goli- goski), 1:16. 2, Pittsburgh, Dupuis 2 (Kunitz, Ea- ton), 19:45 (en).
SHOTS ON GOAL
Pittsburgh ...................................... 3 13 9 — 25 Montreal ........................................ 7 3 8 — 18
Power-play opportunities: Pittsburgh 0 of 4; Montreal 0 of 2. Goalies: Pittsburgh, Fleury 6-3-0 (18 shots-18 saves). Montreal, Halak 5-4-0 (24-23). A: 21,273 (21,273). T: 2:23.
SHARKS 4, RED WINGS 3 (OT)
Patrick Marleau scored 7 minutes 7 seconds into overtime, lifting San Jo- se to a comeback win over Detroit and a 3-0 series lead. The Red Wings led 3-1 with 13 min- utes left in regulation. Game 4 is Thursday night in De-
troit, where the Red Wings will try to stay alive. The two-time defending Western Conference champions ha- ven’t been swept since the first round in 2003 by Anaheim. Joe Thornton scored 6:42 into the
third to pull San Jose within a goal and Logan Couture tied it with 6:43 left. Tomas Holmstrom and Dan Cleary
gave Detroit a 2-0 lead in the first. San Jose’s Devin Setoguchi scored with four seconds left in the period, but Henrik Zetterberg restored Detroit’s two-goal lead early in the second.
SCORING
San Jose ................................ 1021 — 4 Detroit ................................... 2100 — 3
FIRST PERIOD
Scoring: 1, Detroit, Holmstrom 4 (Franzen, Lid- strom), 13:33. 2, Detroit, Cleary 2 (Miller, Zetter- berg), 18:37. 3, San Jose, Setoguchi 5 (Pavelski, Clowe), 19:56.
SECOND PERIOD
Scoring: 4, Detroit, Zetterberg 7 (Filppula, Rafal- ski), 1:42.
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: 5, San Jose, Thornton 2, 6:42. 6, San Jose, Couture 3 (Mitchell, Vlasic), 13:17.
FIRST OVERTIME
Scoring: 7, San Jose, Marleau 2 (Thornton), 7:07.
SHOTS ON GOAL
San Jose ..................................... 8 7 12 6 — 33 Detroit ........................................ 14 7 9 5 — 35
Power-play opportunities: San Jose 0 of 6; Detroit 0 of 2. Goalies: San Jose, Nabokov 7-2-0 (35 shots-32 saves). Detroit, Howard 4-6-0 (33-29). A: 20,066 (20,066). T: 2:58.
PHOTOS BY RICHARD A. LIPSKI FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Washington-Lee center fielder Tom Edwards, a four-year varsity starter, makes one of his two highlight-reel catches against Yorktown.
VIRGINIA AAA NATIONAL DISTRICT BASEBALL
Washington-Lee wins with its seniors
7
by Preston Williams
Washington-Lee center field-
er Tom Edwards has started ev- ery game in his four-year varsi- ty baseball career. None to date, quite possibly, has been as memorable as his Generals’ 7-5 home win over Yorktown on Tuesday.
On a night when Washing-
ton-Lee honored its seven sen- iors, including Edwards, he made two highlight-reel diving catches with runners on base in the third inning to stave off a potential blowout loss, then took the mound to throw four scoreless innings and give his team a chance to rally from a 5-2 deficit. All against the Patriots, the Generals’ arch ri- vals and the three-time defend- ing National District champi- ons. The Generals scored four runs in the bottom of the fourth, including two on a dou- ble by Edwards’s brother, senior Tim, and another two on a ho- mer by senior Christian Mc- Gillen.
With the senior-stoked victo-
ry, Washington-Lee (13-5, 11-1) went up two games on York-
TENNIS NOTEBOOK
Wootton boys leave little doubt who’s the best in their county
by Jason Mackey
With a pair of highly ranked juniors in Anton Kovrigin and Eiichiro Okuyama, as well as a pair of up-and-coming fresh- men who round out the final two singles slots, the Wootton boys’ tennis team has had little trouble disposing of Montgom- ery County rivals Whitman and Churchill. And everyone else the
Patriots have played. In fact, Wootton (11-0) has
won every one of its matches by a 7-0 score and has ceded only one set all season. “These guys are just ridicu-
lous,” said Wootton Coach Nia Cresham. “They’re just so good. It’s amazing how deep we are.” Cresham has little reason to be modest: Kovrigin is the sec- ond-ranked player in the USTA Mid-Atlantic region 18s; Okuya- ma is 27th.
Besides the team’s two big guns, freshmen Alex Hahn and Mateo Cevallos have emerged to give Wootton quality contrib-
utors at all four singles slots, players that some coaches be- lieve would line up at the top two slots almost anywhere in the area. “Wootton has definitely be- come the dominant team,” Whitman Coach Jasen Gohn said. Normally one of the stan- dard-bearers for Montgomery County tennis, along with reign- ing champion Churchill, Whit- man suffered a 7-0 loss to Woot- ton earlier this spring, snapping the Vikings’ 42-match winning streak that dated back to 2006.
Stokes seeks third title
When Eleanor Roosevelt sen-
ior Katelyn Stokes was a fresh- man in 2007, she burst onto the high school tennis scene by making a surprise postseason run that culminated in a Mary- land 4A state championship. The following year, however,
attention started to swirl around the powerful sopho- more, and Stokes, no longer the new kid in class, lost to Linga- nore’s Katie Schafer in the state
final that season. Her junior campaign saw a
return to dominance, as the Howard recruit wasn’t taken to a third set and knocked off Schafer to win a second state ti- tle, providing her with the chance this year to become only the fourth player in state his- tory to take top honors three times. In hopes of doing so, Stokes wanted to make one last tweak to her game and improve how she plays around the net — not only getting there but hopefully setting herself up with a return- able ball that enables her to end the rally as soon as possible. “When I was younger, I used to be afraid to go to the net,” said Stokes, a three-time All- Met who’s 9-0 this spring and is ranked ninth in the Mid-Atlan- tic region 18s. “Now I’m good when I go [to the net]. It’s more just a matter of when I go.”
Potomac School’s depth
Despite the graduation of
first-team All-Met Kareem Fa- rah from last year’s MAC reg-
ular season and tournament ti- tle-winning squad, the Potomac School boys continue to thrive. Juniors Zach Hublitz and
Ned Mandel have each bumped up a slot, with Hublitz taking over for Farah as the team’s No. 1 singles player and unques- tioned leader. That, coupled with the strong
play of Chris Dale and Austin Chiles at the No. 3 and 4 singles slots, has Potomac School, which has a record of 211-62 since 1992 while winning 12 conference championships dur- ing that span, eyeing a return trip to the VISAA state final, where it lost to state power Col- legiate School last spring. “Last year when we played Collegiate, they were so much deeper than us,” said Coach Marty Hublitz, whose team im- proved to 16-2 with a 7-0 win over Georgetown Day School on Tuesday, a mark that includes a 5-2 win over Collegiate on April 5. “Not only have we filled Ka- reem’s shoes, but we’re deeper than we’ve ever been.”
mackeyj@washpost.com
WASH-LEE
YORKTOWN
5
Out with a bang:Washington-Lee
third baseman Jeremy Seipp, one of seven players honored for senior night, went 3 for 3 with a double and RBI.
Usual suspects: Since the
formation of the National District in 1995, Yorktown (six) and Washington-Lee (five) have combined for 11 district championships.
town (9-7, 9-3) in the district standings. “This is huge for our team,”
Tom Edwards said. And just as significant for Ed- wards, as far as Generals Coach Doug Grove is concerned. “This is quite possibly his best game,” Grove said. “It’s hard to picture two better plays back to back than what every- body saw given the time and significance. The difficulty of those diving catches was unbe- lievable.”
Edwards, the team’s ace, did not pitch a complete game in his most recent outing, against Edison, because the Generals
on
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The end of the come-from- behind win on senior night is sweet for Edwards.
wanted to keep him fresh for Yorktown. In relief of junior Austin Evans, Edwards struck out four and walked one and benefited from a Patriot being caught stealing by junior catch- er Ryan Dickt for the second out of the sixth. Washington-Lee had scored 67 runs in its previous four games and had four other dou- ble-digit scoring outings this season, so being down four runs early against Yorktown was not particularly daunting. Patriots senior left-hander Dean Johnson had walked only
one batter all season, and had gone to three balls on just 10, first-year Yorktown Coach Mike Ruck said. But Johnson wanted to nibble a little more against Washington-Lee, which is known for its aggressive hitters. The Generals got those four
runs off Johnson in the fourth to complete a regular season sweep of Yorktown. “It’s a neighborhood rivalry,” said Grove, a 1981 Washington- Lee graduate who is in his 16th year as coach and is just the program’s third coach since 1960. “This is a little bit differ- ent from playing anybody else that we play. “Beating these guys on senior night, I don’t think [our guys] will forget it for a long time. I probably won’t either.”
williamsp@washpost.com
no position to concern itself with aesthetics. The club is in frantic need of a victory, by any means, and seems certain to alter its tac- tics starting Wednesday night against the Kansas City Wizards at RFK Stadium. “We discussed some things to
try to get the team focused on re- sults, no matter how ugly they are,” United President Kevin Payne said. “Since I have checked the standings recently, we haven’t gotten any points for style. We’re not worried about that right now. If we get the ship righted and if we add a few players in the sum- mer, maybe then we will try to go back to playing the kind of soccer we want to play.” Coach Curt Onalfo identified glimmers of hope Saturday, a 2-0 loss to the New York Red Bulls that unraveled after a promising first half. Although his team
made better use of the flanks and generated quality opportunities, goals remained elusive. United has not scored in three league home matches and has yet to take a lead in any of the five games. Its only goals came five minutes apart in a 3-2 defeat at Philadelphia on April 10. Since then, D.C. has gone scoreless for 202 minutes. (Kansas City has been shut out three consecutive games.) United has also yielded several
soft goals, the result of defensive breakdowns, overcommitted at- tackers and unstable goalkeep- ing.
“I don’t think we have earned the right to play good soccer,” Payne said. “More to the point, it’s not working. If it’s not working, you have to try something else.” Changes might come in goal, where Troy Perkins has struggled
since rejoining the club from the Norwegian league. Backup Bill Hamid, 19, has not made an offi- cial appearance since emerging from United’s youth academy last fall. Further moves are likely this summer, when the international transfer period reopens. United technical director Chad Ashton spent two weeks in Argentina and is scheduled to scout in Eu- rope and Africa this month. “We could use some more tal- ent in a few spots, but that is not why we are 0-5,” Payne said. “We are 0-5 because we haven’t been as competitive as we need to be, collectively or individually. It seems like every game four or five guys don’t show up.” Asked if some players are sim- ply not good enough to meet the front office’s expectations, he said, “There is a point with cer-
HIGH SCHOOLS GYMNASTICS
B-CC makes it four in a row
Barons outdistance Blair for Montgomery County championship
by Gabrielle Bluestone
In a sport where hundredths of a point often determine the winners and losers, the nearly 16-point gap that separated Bethesda-Chevy Chase’s gymnas- tics team from Blair, the second- place finisher, could have been unusual. But it’s become routine for the Barons, who piled up 179.2 points on Tuesday to complete their fourth consecutive unde- feated regular season with their fourth straight Montgomery County title.
Coach Dana Creager pointed to the team’s depth that pro- pelled it to the title and one of its highest overall scores in recent history. Only freshman Julia Konner, a level nine club gym- nast, earned top honors in an in- dividual event for the Barons, winning the floor exercise with a 9.425 on the way to claiming the all-around title with a 38.0. Kon- ner also placed second on the bars, beam and vault, with a 9.5, 9.4 and 9.65, respectively. No other B-CC gymnast scored high- er than fourth, but the Barons’ overall scores on each element were significantly higher than any other school’s. “I’m very happy with how I did
and it’s nice to win as a team; there’s so much energy,” Konner said. “But I’m going to focus on the beam in practice because I felt a little wobbly.” Creager attributed the Barons’
large margin of victory to a strong balance beam rotation and a solid recovery from a weak performance in the bars at the team’s last meet. Senior All-Met Ebony Walters placed sixth on the uneven bars with a 9.1, despite an injury that sidelined her for part of the sea- son. “The beam rotation was the
first time that all six girls com- peted and didn’t fall,” Creager said. The team’s overall beam score, 45.825, was the Barons’ best-scoring element. While Konner is still adjusting to high school gymnastics — the floor is different and the bars are sometimes closer together, she said — she’s adjusting to the changes. “I’m getting used to high school gymnastics,” Konner said. “I had to change my vault, but I feel confident because I im- proved on it.”
bluestoneg@washpost.com
Well-rounded: Blair junior Sophie Siedell was the only Blazer to place in any event; she took third on the bars with a 9.450, fifth on the vault with a 8.8 and fourth on the beam with a 9.275. Those scores translated into a third-place all-around finish with a 36.625.
Brande takes second:
Springbrook’s Hanna Brande gave a strong performance, winning the vault title with a 9.825. Brande also placed third on the floor, with a 9.100 and took sixth on the beam, scoring a 9.150. She placed second in the all-around competition with a 37.075
tain players which you have to say, ‘Maybe this is it, maybe this is what we are going to get and maybe it’s not as good as we think it is.’ ”
United notes: Onalfo was
fined $1,000 and suspended from an additional U.S. Open Cup match for improper behavior during last week’s tournament qualifier against FC Dallas. He was ejected in the 32nd minute for disputing a foul call. The dismissal carried with it a one-game ban, to be served in the second preliminary round June 2 against Real Salt Lake. The MLS Disciplinary Committee ruled that, if United advances, Onalfo would also be barred from the sideline in the round of 16 of the tournament proper this summer. ...
United will play El Salvador’s national team June 19 at RFK.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 2010
United vs. Wizards
Where: RFK Stadium. When: 7 p.m.
TV: ESPN2.
Radio: WDCN (87.7 FM), Spanish. MLS Records: United 0-5, Wizards 2-2-1.
D.C. Probable Starters (4-4-2
formation): GK Troy Perkins; Ds Devon McTavish, Carey Talley, Juan Manuel Peña, Rodney Wallace; MFs Santino Quaranta, Clyde Simms, Kurt Morsink, Christian Castillo; Fs Jaime Moreno, Danny Allsopp.
K.C. Probable Starters (4-4-2): GK
Jimmy Nielsen; Ds Michael Harrington, Matt Besler, Pablo Escobar, Roger Espinoza; MFs Kei Kamara, Stephane Auvray, Jack Jewsbury, Ryan Smith; Fs Teal Bunbury, Josh Wolff.
Proceeds will benefit the Spanish Catholic Center. The club is also planning to make a donation to benefit former midfielder Joe Vi- de, 25, who is battling Hodgkin’s disease.
goffs@washpost.com
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