Silver Medal

Julie Hull Elicker came away with some mementos of the World Cup Lacrosse Championship Saturday. The Great Valley High School graduate, a starter on the United States national team, ended her lacrosse career with a silver medal and a Joe Palooka-caliber black eye. Elicker would be the first to concede that the silver medal may be the one that hurts more . . . because it means second best. Elicker and Team USA came up three goals shy in their bid for a second straight world title.

The lesson that remains with Angela Brown, after all the travel and all the competition, the successes and the failures, is that life is there to be explored. "My grandmother taught me to make decisions and to try things," Brown said. "She told me to go through life and leave no stone unturned. So when I come to a stone, I turn it over and see what's there. " Brown, raised in Southwest Philadelphia by her grandmother and grandfather, Martha and Cornelius Brown, has found her way to success in track and field as a long jumper.

Yesterday's Recap Bode Miller takes the silver medal in Super G, his second medal in two events. Sports, E1. Today's Highlight Men's two-man bobsledding will be featured in two prime-time runs. Olympic schedule, E3.

Caroline Boschetto, 13, of Doylestown, a student at Our Lady of Mount Carmel School, invented a device that creates electricity from shower water. Gazelle Zerafati, 16, of Villanova, a student at the Baldwin School, investigated the effect of N-acetylaspartate on brain cells called oligodendrocytes. Kevin Li, 15, of Fort Washington, a student at Upper Dublin High School, discovered a creative, elegant way to support an ancient Euclidean geometry proof. These three outstanding young scientists were among 15 students who earned top honors in the Delaware Valley Science Fairs and an all-expenses-paid trip to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair next month in San Jose, Calif.

Drexel basketball player Frank Elegar will play for the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Pan American Games in Brazil. The team begins pool play Wednesday. Elegar, who will be a senior, led the Dragons in scoring, rebounding and field- goal percentage last season. The Virgin Islands qualified for the Pan Am Games by winning the silver medal at the Centrobasket Tournament in 2006. The team pulled off one of the biggest upsets in its history with an 85-84 win over previously unbeaten Puerto Rico in the semifinals, but lost to host Panama in the title game, 73-59.

Ray LeBlanc and his teammates' attempt to win the bronze medal in ice hockey will be televised live by CBS (Channel 10) at 3 p.m. today. The United States, which fell, 5-2, to the Unified Team yesterday, will meet Czechoslovakia, a 4-2 loser to Canada. The U.S. team (5-1-1) is looking for its first medal since winning the gold in 1980. It finished seventh in 1984 and 1988. Czechoslovakia (5-2), the only team to beat the Unified Team in this tournament, won a silver medal in 1984, but slumped to sixth in 1988.

The Flyers claimed center Craig Darby off waivers yesterday from the New York Islanders. Darby, 23, recorded two assists in 10 games with the Islanders in the 1995-96 season. He had 22 goals and 28 assists in 68 games with their AHL affiliate, the Worcester (Mass.) IceCats. The 6-2, 200-pound native of Oneida, N.Y., was acquired by New York from Montreal together with Kirk Muller and Mathieu Schneider in exchange for Pierre Turgeon and Vladimir Malakhov in April 1995. In 23 career NHL games, Darby has recorded four assists.

On Thursday night, Summer Sanders cried. She had won a bronze medal. She had won a silver medal. She had set American records along the way. She had swum her best times ever. But she cried. "I just broke down," she said last night after completing her Olympics with a gold medal in the women's 200-meter butterfly. "I didn't know why. I was crying, and I really felt like I had to, so I did. I don't know what it was. I was very happy with my swims. But . . . I got second. "It just didn't happen.

EUGENE, Ore. - Ryann Krais came to historic Hayward Field as the NCAA heptathlon champion. But the Kansas State junior out of Methacton High knew that she would be facing a pack of internationally-tested "hep" veterans in the U.S. track and field championships and would be lucky to place in the top six. It turned out a whole lot better than that. Krais, 21, rallied from far down to come within a mere 28 points of winning it all on Sunday. It all boiled down to the 800 meters, the seventh and concluding event of the heptathlon, and Krais raced out to a huge early edge on her 11 pursuers, reaching the 400 post in just under 60 seconds.

For some athletes at these Winter Olympics, there is little difference between a gold medal and a silver medal. Both are symbols of excellence, fitting rewards for years of sacrifice, pain, endurance and commitment. There is one group of athletes at these games, however, for whom a silver medal will be more a mark of failure than excellence. That's just the way it is for the U.S. women's hockey team. That's how high of a standard this powerhouse team has set for itself.

HERSHEY, Pa. - Billy Rappo capped his high school wrestling career, and a bona fide era in Pennsylvania wrestling, in fitting fashion. With a state championship. Rappo, a Council Rock South senior, won his second straight PIAA Class AAA championship, using an array of takedowns, reversals, and near-falls to best Manheim Township's Matt Grossmann, 12-0, in the 113-pound final Saturday night at the Giant Center. "A win's a win, but it's always good to dominate a kid, put the exclamation point on it," Rappo said.

John Joseph Macionis, 95, formerly of Elkins Park, a retired sales executive and swimmer who won a silver medal at the Berlin Olympics when he was 20 and went on to win medals in his 60s, died Thursday, Feb. 16, at the Colonnades, a retirement community in Charlottesville, Va. Mr. Macionis graduated in 1933 from Central High School, where he captained the swim team and set a 220-yard freestyle scholastic record. As a youth, he also swam for the Germantown YMCA and for the Big Brothers Swimming Association at AAU events.

EUGENE, Ore. - Ryann Krais came to historic Hayward Field as the NCAA heptathlon champion. But the Kansas State junior out of Methacton High knew that she would be facing a pack of internationally-tested "hep" veterans in the U.S. track and field championships and would be lucky to place in the top six. It turned out a whole lot better than that. Krais, 21, rallied from far down to come within a mere 28 points of winning it all on Sunday. It all boiled down to the 800 meters, the seventh and concluding event of the heptathlon, and Krais raced out to a huge early edge on her 11 pursuers, reaching the 400 post in just under 60 seconds.

It was approaching 1 p.m. on a perfectly sun-kissed day and Cierra White, for the moment, was standing taller than anyone else on the infield at Shippensburg University. Perched atop an eight-tiered wood podium, White had just won her third career state track and field championship. As officials, other athletes, and reporters buzzed around - all while a photographer called out instructions for how these eight high school girls should pose for the snapshot - White appeared loose and energetic.

It was approaching 1 p.m. on a perfectly sun-kissed day and Cierra White, for the moment, was standing taller than anyone else on the infield at Shippensburg University. Perched atop an eight-tiered wood podium, White had just won her third career state track and field championship. As officials, other athletes, and reporters buzzed around - all while a photographer called out instructions for how these eight high school girls should pose for the snapshot - White appeared loose and energetic.

Caroline Boschetto, 13, of Doylestown, a student at Our Lady of Mount Carmel School, invented a device that creates electricity from shower water. Gazelle Zerafati, 16, of Villanova, a student at the Baldwin School, investigated the effect of N-acetylaspartate on brain cells called oligodendrocytes. Kevin Li, 15, of Fort Washington, a student at Upper Dublin High School, discovered a creative, elegant way to support an ancient Euclidean geometry proof. These three outstanding young scientists were among 15 students who earned top honors in the Delaware Valley Science Fairs and an all-expenses-paid trip to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair next month in San Jose, Calif.

Yesterday's Recap Bode Miller takes the silver medal in Super G, his second medal in two events. Sports, E1. Today's Highlight Men's two-man bobsledding will be featured in two prime-time runs. Olympic schedule, E3.

Flyers defenseman Kimmo Timonen helped Finland win a silver medal in Turin at the 2006 Winter Olympics. This time, in what figures to be his fourth and final Olympics, he hopes to come home with gold. Canada, Russia, and Sweden, the defending champion, are considered the favorites. "It doesn't matter if we're the favorites or the underdogs," Timonen said. "We're going to do our jobs, and the last few times we've done well. We want to keep it going. " Finland, which has a veteran team with strong defense and goaltending, has never won the gold medal.

You see them standing on the spotlighted Olympic podiums, just a few inches below the winners, silver medals gleaming on their chests, the eyes of the world upon them, and you think they must be among the luckiest people on earth. But most world-class athletes aren't built to be runners-up. They dream of the top step, the gold medal, the unalloyed glory. For many, the joy of being an Olympic medalist can be overshadowed by the frustration of finishing second. Take Brendan Hansen.

Kate Barber's U.S. national field hockey teammates good-naturedly refer to her as "Grandma" because she's the oldest member of the team. But there is nothing grandmotherly about the 31-year-old Unionville graduate's desire when it comes to a lifelong goal of playing in the Olympics. In what Barber said would be her last bid to make an Olympic appearance - the United States has been thwarted twice in her career - she began practicing Tuesday with the national team at its new facilities in Chula Vista, Calif.