Cougars

An already wounded George School football team took some tough knocks from Pennington (N.J.) in a 40-0 loss Saturday. "This has to be one of our least successful afternoons," said Cougars coach John Gleeson. "We've had some rough going, and we can't excuse it all to injuries, though we've had tough times with those. " The visiting Cougars (0-3) lost their fifth starter to injury since the season began. Senior running back Joel Wennik, the team's leading rusher and scorer from last year, took a helmet hit in his side and left the game at halftime.

The Springfield Cougars aren't roaring about any more victories this year, after losing, 43-41, to the Great Valley Patriots Wednesday night in the first round of the District 1 Class AAA semifinals. The Cougars hail from the Central League, the Patriots from the Ches-Mont League. The Cougars (6-12 league, 8-17 overall) and the Patriots (7-5 league, 15-10 overall) each displayed strong defenses throughout the game, but it was the Patriots' better shooting percentage in the fourth quarter that proved to be the clincher.

Akiba Hebrew's basketball team continued its mastery over visiting Woodlynde School on Tuesday afternoon, and Cougars' coach Steve Gittleman cited a solid defensive effort for the victory. The Cougars dumped Woodlynde, 71-38, in a Tri-County League game for their second win over the Warriors this season and ran their overall record to 10-12 and 9-3 in the league. "We played excellent pressure defense," Gittleman said. "Once we started pressing them, they weren't able to stay with us. Good defense has helped us out in all of our wins this year.

Springfield coach Skip Werley saw his Cougars lose Saturday to a team led by someone he likes very much. His kid brother, Ralph. It was the younger Werley's Pottsgrove Falcons that came up on top, 60-52, in a nonleague basketball game. "Besides being my brother, he is also a good friend," said Skip Werley. The teams last met in the quarterfinals of the PIAA Class AAA District 1 playoffs last season. Springfield won, advancing to the semifinals before being knocked out. So the brothers decided to meet on the basketball court again.

Cherry Hill East may possess South Jersey's most deadly outside shooting attack, and coach John Valore is hoping his Cougars will ride that ability to a winning season. East senior guard Glenn Foley is the trigger man in the Cougars' outside game. He led the state in 3-point field goals last season, connecting on 109 in 251 attempts (43 percent). Point guard Dan Karbach and guard Floyd Lewis are also potent shooters in an offensive system that features three guards and two forwards.

Cherry Hill East boys' basketball coach John Valore is counting on his Cougars to make big strides this season. And with three starters and a host of experienced players on the roster, the Cougars have a solid chance at enjoying a winning campaign. "How good we will be will depend on the level of intensity these players put forth," said Valore, who is entering his 12th season as East's coach. "They need to improve their intensity over last season and play better defense in order for us to show some improvement.

The Springfield Cougars entered the basketball season shouldering some high expectations from their Central League co-championship last year and the return of high scorers George Pendergrass and Greg Jefferson. But Springfield's first month was riddled with four nonleague losses in six tries - and question marks began to pop up. A 69-63 win Saturday at Marple Newtown did little to erase those questions, but coach Skip Werley is hoping the victory sparks some momentum for his team.

There have been more successful debuts than the one Upper Darby pitcher John Karolyi endured on Friday afternoon in the rain at Springfield High School. But Karolyi's unspectacular outing did not dampen Royals coach Ray Niemiec's outlook on someone he hopes will be an integral member of his pitching staff before the season ends. Springfield stroked seven hits off Karolyi in five innings on its way to a 10-3 triumph over Upper Darby in a Central League game played before a smattering of people huddling under umbrellas.

Akiba Hebrew's basketball team received a double dose of bad news from host Swarthmore Academy on Tuesday afternoon in a Tri-County League game. First, the Cougars were swamped by Swarthmore, 74-40, and second, they suffered a key loss when junior forward Josh Kern went down with an ankle injury. Akiba, however, claimed an easy 75-40 Tri-County victory over Kimberton Farms on Monday afternoon to salvage a 1-1 week. The struggling Cougars now have a 3-7 overall record. At the outset of the loss to the Knights, Kern was forced to leave with an injured left ankle.

After returning only four starters from last year's team, Springfield football coach Rick Taylor was hoping his young squad would begin to learn to play together as a unit in its season-opener at Unionville on Saturday. The Cougars certainly learned a lot. In fact, they taught Unionville a lesson, jelling as the game went on and whipping the hapless Indians, 32-0. Springfield not only outscored the Indians, it held the advantage in every significant statistical category, including rushing yards (253-81)

The sight would appear foreign to many baseball or softball traditionalists: a hitter running from the back of the batter's box to the front as the pitcher delivers the ball. But in softball, the technique, called slap-hitting or "slapping," has become common from the Little League to the NCAA Division I level. Slapping evolved beginning in the 1980s as a way for fast players to utilize their speed and take advantage of the short distance (60 feet) between bases by batting from the left side of the plate.

Alex Poplawski is usually a shoo-in to win draws for her Springfield (Delco) lacrosse team. At 5-foot-11, the Stanford recruit typically uses her height advantage to overwhelm counterparts. But when the Cougars traveled to Upper Dublin on Friday for their regular-season finale, Poplawski was up against Kelly Cross, also 5-11, the Cardinals' Syracuse-signed midfielder with some faceoff prowess of her own. "Alex is able to usually take the draws, but Kelly Cross is just as tall as her and she's a very good player," Springfield coach Keith Broome said.

Six years and three hockey championships later, West Chester Rustin already is in a tie as the most-decorated program in Class A Flyers Cup history. Making its fourth title-game appearance in the last five years, top-seeded Rustin won its third Cup, downing No. 3 Springfield (Delco), 4-1, at Ice Line in West Chester on Monday night. Rustin also beat Springfield in the 2010 final, when it won its second straight Cup. This year's championship ties the Golden Knights (15-2-2)

BOBBY CREMINS said this time he is stepping down for good. Nearly 2 months after taking a medical leave of absence as the College of Charleston coach, an emotional Cremins announced yesterday he was retiring from the game. But he struggled to get the words out. The coach's voice cracked and he fought back tears as he addressed players, friends and administrators on the floor of TD Arena, the Cougars' homecourt. The 64-year-old Cremins announced on Jan. 27 that he would miss the rest of the season and later said he was physically exhausted.

WHEN THE time came for BYU to make a run, Marquette was ready. Darius Johnson-Odom and Jae Crowder came up with big shots every time the Cougars threatened, and the Golden Eagles withstood another furious second-half rally by BYU for an 88-68 victory in the NCAA Tournament second-round West Regional game yesterday in Louisville, Ky. Crowder finished with 25 points and 16 rebounds, while Johnson-Odom scored 12 of his 20 points in the second half....

The great thing about making the South Jersey Group 4 finals is that you walk in the gym and find more than 600 red-clad students waiting for you. The not-so-great thing is that you find Jahleem Montague waiting for you, too. Along with Ga-briel Chandler, Kashawn Dunston and the rest of a deep, diligent, and determined Atlantic City team. That's how it works in the sectional finals, which Cherry Hill East visited for the first time in the history of the boys' basketball program Tuesday.

In the final moments, Dave Allen looked down the bench and saw a few hundred guys. Not literally, of course. When the Cherry Hill East coach called on his reserves Saturday to finish a 52-42 victory over Shawnee in the South Jersey Group 4 boys' basketball semifinals, he went with a handful of sophomores and juniors. But Allen knew that on this special day, the Cougars' backups stretched through the years, to guys like Rocco Santaguida and Kurt Barbera, to Tom Katsikas and Nick Katsikas, to Brent Fisher and Marcus Bullock and Chris Santo, and many, many more.

Senior guard Marc Schlessel looks back at the Cougars' playoff victory over rival Cherry Hill West.

Cherry Hill East boys' basketball coach Dave Allen doesn't need to look at the calendar to know the time of year. He can just look in his seniors' eyes. "They are so determined," Allen said. "Marc [Schlessel, senior guard] said it a couple weeks ago. He said he saw the end was coming. " Seniors don't need to walk around practices and in the locker room before games with a sign board that reads, "The End is Nigh. " They know it. They sense it. And so does everybody else associated with any program rich enough to feature athletes who have dedicated much of their teenage years to the cause.