Herd

When the final whistle blew yesterday, signaling the end of Woodbury's amazing 29-game winning streak that dated to 1987, Thundering Herd fans stood and applauded their team for a solid five minutes. The visiting Thundering Herd was chasing the all-time South Jersey consecutive-game win streak of 31. But the team saw its string snapped with a heartbreaking 19-14 loss to Colonial Conference rival Haddon Heights before 3,500 fans. Woodbury fans applauded a team and a program that has turned into one of South Jersey's most dominant small-school programs.

For the last two seasons, Woodbury's football team has been a constant visitor, as construction workers put the finishing touches on the school's new stadium. That you can't control. For the second time in this 2007 season, the Thundering Herd ran the ball, wearing down the opponents' defense. That you can control. Yesterday's result was an utterly dominating, 18-0 Thundering Herd victory over Haddon Heights in a Colonial Conference inter-divisional matchup. Woodbury (2-0)

Woodbury's nickname might be the Thundering Herd, but, in recent years, the Woodbury basketball team has not been doing much stampeding. If anything, the Herd has been standing around grazing while other Colonial Conference teams have sped past them. Last year, Dominic Carrera took over as head coach and he got the Herd moving - if only a little bit. "We had nine wins last season, which is five more than the team had the year before," Carrera said. "We want to improve on that and move up to the .500 level.

His first five years ended with winning records. His next five finished below .500. This is the rubber year, but with four starters having graduated, coach Willie Murray's task of halting the streak of losing seasons will be that much more difficult. "I enjoy what I'm doing, and it's up to me to make the best of it with the kids who come out," he said. "There's potential here. " COACH. Murray is in his 11th season as head coach. LAST YEAR. The Thundering Herd lost two games for each game it won. Overall, the Herd finished 7-14, and in the Colonial Conference ended up 6-12 and tied with West Deptford for sixth place.

Woodbury will be using its wishbone offense again this year, but if the newcomers don't learn the system well - and learn it quickly - the Thundering Herd see some tough days. Coach Larry Ginsburg has experienced lettermen returning at quarterback, fullback and running back, but the rest of his skill positions will be filled by untested players. The interior line also is short on experience. Youth appears to be the message across the board at Woodbury this fall because the defensive unit also is very young in both age and playing experience.

Al Mann has been coaching high school basketball for 35 years, and he has seen the game transformed into what it has become today: guards with lightning quick reflexes and outstanding dribbling ability and forwards who can leap to the sky. Although he's a throwback to the days of deliberate-style basketball, this year he's relenting a bit and is willing to let his teenagers from Woodbury run a fast break, unless. . . . "If it bombs, we go back to what we usually do," Mann said.

It was a week ago Wednesday that the men and women who have spent their lives tending Hope Montgomery Scott's prized herd of cattle were told their days at Ardrossan Farms were numbered. Edgar Scott Jr., son of the Main Line socialite who died Jan. 9 at age 90, summoned the workers to the office and told them of the family's decision to sell the 275 Ayrshire cattle. The farm, he said, was losing money. He told them they would have to vacate their rent-free homes on the 650- acre estate in Radnor by the end of the year.

When you think of Woodbury High's offense, the name of a bruising fullback, Jimmer Bundy, may be the only one that comes to mind. But with Bundy out of the lineup yesterday in the South Jersey Group 1 championship game, Paulsboro found out quickly who the other players were in the Thundering Herd's offense. Without Bundy, who sat with nagging groin and ankle injuries, Woodbury crushed the visiting Red Raiders, 32-6. Consider that: Quarterback Duane Stanton enjoyed his finest game of the season by completing 6 of 9 passes for 106 yards and a touchdown.

Woodbury High School has gone 27-0 in Colonial Conference play in the last three years. The Thundering Herd has won 23 straight games and is approaching the South Jersey record of 31 straight, set by Millville in 1955. "Last season I think we were one of the best teams in South Jersey," said first-year head coach James Boyd. Boyd is no stranger to the team, having been the offensive line coach for the past seven years. Almost the entire offensive line graduated last year except for one player.

The way Abington basketball coach Jim Wilkinson explained it, the Ghosts were going to try to play against Carlisle's 6-foot-7 junior center, Billy Owens, as if he were not one of the best players in the country. They were going to come out in their zone defense and make Owens force them out of it. And that's just what Owens did. The multi-talented future Division 1 college player scored 37 points, grabbed nine rebounds, recorded two steals and blocked one shot to lead the Thundering Herd past Abington, 71-62, in the quarterfinals of the PIAA Class AAAA state playoffs Saturday at Reading's Geigle Complex.

West Deptford's Clyde Folsom is on the verge of a remarkable coaching milestone. But a good team - and a great player - are in his way. Folsom would become just the seventh football coach in South Jersey to win 200 games if West Deptford beats visiting Woodbury in a Colonial Conference interdivision clash Friday night. Woodbury should provide a stern test in a clash of 1-0 teams. The Thundering Herd are led by quarterback/defensive back/kick returner Anthony Averett, an Alabama recruit.

DES MOINES, Iowa - Cattle are being bred with genes from their African cousins that are accustomed to hot weather. New corn varieties are emerging with larger roots for gathering water in a drought. Someday, the plants may even be able to "resurrect" themselves after a long dry spell, recovering quickly when rain returns. Across American agriculture, farmers and crop scientists have concluded that it's too late to fight climate change. They need to adapt to it with a new generation of hardier animals and plants specially engineered to survive, and even thrive, in intense heat, with little rain.

In case you were wondering, the holiday season began on TV more than two weeks ago when that adorable little elf Justin Bieber sang "Fa La La," a song from his Christmas album, on Dancing With the Stars . That was the first flake. Here comes the blizzard. If you're not running amok through Best Buy on Black Friday, you can stay home and watch Jingle All the Way or The Elf on a Shelf . The week after that, the Rock Center tree gets lit in prime time (Please be my Santa, Al Roker)

State wildlife officials say a disease has killed hundreds of deer across New Jersey in the last two months, thinning the herd in at least five counties. Epizootic hemorrhagic disease has resurfaced in one of the most significant outbreaks in state history, though it has subsided in recent weeks. In an article in the The Star-Ledger of Newark, officials said there was nothing they could do about the illness, which is spread by tiny bugs. But they noted that the disease has no affect on humans and can't be transmitted through handling or eating infected deer meat Since early August, the disease has killed deer in Morris, Union, Mercer, Hunterdon, and Somerset Counties.

A summer Saturday spent roaming the Aronimink Golf Club course during Day 3 of the AT&T National: 7:45 a.m.: The morning is already steamy hot. A parking lot attendant, forgoing nearby shade, slumps deep in a chair that rests near the exact middle of a sunbaked field. "I'll find some shade a little later. Too hung over to move now. " 8:12: A row of cedars separates the fourth hole from Route 252. When these tall trees and I were mere saplings, my public-course-playing friends and I sometimes squeezed between them at twilight to experience some rarefied country-club air. Later, we drank beer there.

PULLING HIS PICKUP truck alongside a 60-foot-long, 5-foot-wide trough filled with yellowish-brown grain, Gary Schuler cracks a small smile and softly says, "I call it my golden feedbowl. " Given that a few moments later he refers to a nearby mound of manure as "black gold" and a manure spreader he once used to distribute vegetable trimmings to his grazing herds as a "salad shooter," it's clear that Schuler has a penchant for wryly colorful euphemisms. But the grain filling that mammoth trough is something special, one stop on a cyclic chain that Schuler refers to as "beer, barley and buffalo.

To most people, running with the bulls in Pamplona is crazy. But a runner need not be crazy. In fact, sanity - not to mention sobriety and speed - is pretty much required. Consider Pete Milligan and Ari Deutsch, two seemingly sensible, teetotaling guys from Cherry Hill who each July head to Spain to commune daily with the bovine herds. Regulars at the eight-day festival of San Fermin since 2004, they've run with the bulls a total of 44 times and hope to hit the 50 mark this year.

As a former park ranger at Valley Forge National Historical Park, I was very saddened to learn of the planned shooting of 1,000 deer over the next four years ("Valley Forge joins call to battle deer," Sunday). When I worked in the park's natural resources division, the official position was that controlling the deer population would not be initiated by the Park Service because neither the deer nor their browsing affected the mission of park, which is to tell the story of the Continental Army at Valley Forge.

The deer herd in Valley Forge National Historical Park has multiplied eightfold in 25 years, and officials say a thousand acres of forest are being eaten alive by deer. That is why, to the horror of animal-rights activists, federal sharpshooters with rifles and night-vision goggles aim to cut the herd from more than 1,200 to fewer than 200 during the next four years. The carcasses are to be given to food banks. Citing public-safety concerns, the park has been secretive about revealing the timing of the shoots, saying only that they would happen between November and March and that the park would be closed off when they occurred.

Officials at Valley Forge National Historical Park say deer will be shot there starting next month, ending a yearlong delay and commencing a controversial plan to dramatically thin the herd. An animal-rights group responded to Monday's announcement with an immediate pledge to demonstrate at the park. And an attorney said he might seek a restraining order to try to stop the shooting. A year after putting off a scheduled November 2009 deer kill, Valley Forge Park officials said Monday that they were going forward with "lethal reduction.