THE GAZETTE
Page B-2
SHERWOOD
Continued from Page B-1 time across the board in the 12 months since, Lees said, and the experience she gained last high championship season will be vital to the Class 4A/3A state runner-up Sherwood’s success this postseason since she is not the team’s highest scorer. “[Hill] just has a great racing mentality, she knows how to get herself prepared for races,” Lees said. “She thinks ahead of time. Even when she knows she might not have [great competition] she still wants to have a good race,
PRESSURE
Continued from Page B-1 Of all the various explanations local coaches offered in explaining why an athlete would rescind a verbal commitment — personnel changes (Quadree Smith’s and Justin Anderson’s reasoning), proximity to home, having a child (Taivon Jacobs’), a sick family member, what have you — each eventually circled back to one distinct reason: pressure. Athletes are under it from
Wednesday, February 5, 2014 g
she’ll work on little things.” Lees and Hill admitted they were unsure of what this winter would hold for Sherwood. Graduation stripped the Warriors of their top two scorers and 30 percent of their overall points won in last year’s third-place finish at Metros, their highest in recent history. But Saturday’s second straight Montgomery Division II title was a promising start to the postseason. Hill won every event she contested — 50-yard freestyle, 100-yard freestyle, 200-yard medley relay, 400yard freestyle. The latter is the one that clinched the win.
Hill said she does feel more pressure to perform but has embraced her role as a go-to and is motivated by the opportunity to help the Warriors. Lees said she has become a great leader by example despite her youth. Continued success — Sherwood has finished in the top 5 at Metros three of the past four years — has been helpful in keeping the program an option for swimmers that may have chosen to go elsewhere in the past, Lees said. The addition of sophomore Our Lady of Good Counsel transfer Margarita Ryan, who reached the final of the 100-yard backstroke at last
winter’s Metros and a talented freshman class, also seem to have helped Sherwood recover some of the points it lost. “You worry about if there’s going to be a lull, kids in our area have some choices as to where they want to go to school,” Lees said. “I do think one of the things that’s helped us with the girls team is [recent success]. Last year finishing third, we beat Good Counsel for the first time and the girls were extremely excited. I think girls in the cluster see that and get excited that they can be part of a program that has that sort of success.” Primarily Sherwood’s dis-
tance freestyler and butterflier a year ago, Hill has come in to her own as a top sprint freestyler and said she prefers the shorter races these days. She credited increased training — Hill works with former Good Counsel star Jack Conger’s coach Sue Chen — with improving her strength, which translates in her sprinting. Hill was a three-sport athlete until eighth grade but dropped lacrosse and basketball that year to focus more seriously on swimming. She chose the aquatic sport because of the tangible evidence of improvement swim times provide. She’s
certainly progressed quickly and has positioned herself as a major contender this championship season and her results will play a major role in Sherwood’s continued success. “I think mental toughness is a huge quality, you don’t find a whole lot of real young swimmers having quite as much as she does,” Lees said “Last year at states was the biggest testament to that, she kind of came out of nowhere to win the 100 fly. … I was kind of surprised this year, I expected more of a drop off but we’re right back up there.”
their very first conversation with their very first college coach. It is then upped a notch when a verbal offer — sometimes as early as middle school — is extended their way. And then things can begin to spiral out of control when dozens more throw their name into the mix, each with their own attractions and incentives — playing time, championships, professional development — to consider. “One of our receivers just got offered by Michigan State,” said Crowell, who also coaches the boys’ basketball team at Spring-
brook. “So let’s just sign the papers right now. But it doesn’t work like that anymore. He’s got to wait until next February to sign and now he thinks he’s got to live up to these expectations. If they offer you right now, the kid should be able to sign right now if he wants to. It’s out of control.” “Personally,” Vetter added, “I would eliminate the verbals and have a signing period in April. If a player didn’t have to make a decision until April there wouldn’t be much pressure.” Shields, though he feels for
the athletes under the everwatchful eye of the college coaches, says it’s also a wise move on their part to begin talking to kids before they can even drive a car or take their SATs. “You want to be the first to offer, which makes sense,” he said. “You want to be the one who discovered them. That’s the smart thing for the coaches because you want them to commit.” But when coaches offer too early, it could just as easily backfire. Athletes oftentimes get overexcited or want to shed the
pressure of recruiting so they hastily pledge before realizing that bigger universities or better fits could also come calling. Such was the case for Nigel Johnson, a former Riverdale Baptist guard. Now at Kansas State, Johnson had been verbally committed to play for George Washington for nearly a year. About a month prior to signing day, he took stock of his talent and figured he could go someplace higher, so he reopened his recruitment with GW as a firm backup plan. Within a week he had switched to Kansas State.
“He thought his opportunity to play at the next level would be greater playing at Kansas State, playing in the Big XII,” Wilson said. “And the point guard situation was up in the air so he thought he’d be able to play right away.” So, is there a solution? Recruiting — and therefore commitments of all kind — is an inevitable part of college sports. Shields believes Crowell is onto something when he suggested if a college extends an offer — verbal or physical — that the athlete should be able to sign that day rather than wait until designated signing periods. Vetter believes verbal offers and commitments should be removed entirely. Either way, reneging would become all but a moot practice. “Once you’re signed, you’re locked,” Shields said. “I think you should be able to move [signing] up. It would settle things down very quickly.”
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Continued from Page B-1 the Silver Spring-based USAJA Track and Field Club, which includes athletes from James H. Blake, Sherwood, John F. Kennedy, Springbrook and Wheaton, has also played a major role in Paint Branch’s recent ascent to the top of the county, said Dillard, who served as the club’s coach. The Panthers’ mid-distance and distance runners — and even some of the sprinters — focused on improving their endurance during the fall cross country season so everyone showed up for the winter season in shape and ready to go. “They realized that the people they were competing against during the school year, compete in the summer and [if] we were going to be competitive [during the school year] we had to make sure we covered all our bases,” Dillard said. Creating a winning lineup for track championships is like piecing together a puzzle, Dillard said. It’s not necessarily about winning every event — the likelihood of that happening is slim to none — but picking up as many points in each event as possible. It’s not just the team’s overall range that has propelled Paint Branch this winter, but each individual athlete’s versatility within that. This enabled some athletes, such as Neil, to take on new events in order to replace points lost by those who graduated a year ago. “We have distance athletes who can drop down to run middistance, sprinters who can move up and who can switch over to jumps,” Dillard said. “Our versatility worked in our favor; we don’t have a lot of single event kids.” Clifton Green’s performance last week perfectly exemplifies that as he followed up a win in the long jump by joining forces with Oliver Lloyd, Dewayne Haamid and Noel Njem to set a meet record (3 minutes, 29.89 seconds) en route to winning the 1,600-meter relay. While the Panthers only won four of 14 events — two were relays, which are worth more — they finished in the top 8 of all but one event, including top 3 performances in seven events. Paint Branch also finished two athletes in the top eight of two events. Devonte Johnson won the shot put and Ire Hussein, Neil, Haamid and Lloyd took the 3,200-meter relay. Last week’s county title was a milestone for the Panthers, but it was only the first step toward the region and state titles they have their sights on. “Counties is something to be happy about but I don’t believe we need to be too happy,” Lloyd said. “I always believed trying to be successful was the hard part but being successful is the hardest part.”