One Game at a Time

It's been 10 days since the last women's basketball game, and tonight was the final home game of the season for a proud Maryland Women's basketball squad. Tonight the team paid respect to seniors Jade Perry, Ashleigh Newman, Laura Harper, Christie Marrone, and Crystal Langhorne. This squad of 5 players were the first Coach Frese recruited and took the Terps to national prominence in 2006 when they won the NCAA trophy.

There were lots of tears off the court when the seniors emerged from the locker room and assembled in front of the entranceway for the final game of the regular season. Those tears continued when Coach Frese appeared (just 7 days off from delivering twin boys) to deliver glass enclosed jerseys and photos to the seniors and thank them for the prestige they have brought to the Terrapin program.

The media coverage for this evening's game rivaled that of men's basketball. There were television crews from the Sports Machine, WBAL, WUSA, and NBC4. Gail Burton (AP), along with Milton, and several other reporters that usually cover men's basketball, attended. It was pretty tight on the sidelines.

You can view photos of Crystal Langhorne, Jade Perry, Ashleigh Newman, Kristi Toliver, and Laura Harper as well as read about Maryland's thrilling victory over Florida State over on the DC Sports Box.

Fortunately the game was against Florida State and there weren't any Floridians in the media area. If this final home game was against a more local team (Virginia) there would probably have been more competition for spots on the floor.

I shot the game with my D200 and 70-200/2.8 lens, along with my D2H and 400/2.8 prime. The 400 is way too much lens for shooting on the baseline, but 200 is just too short for shooting the other side of the court. Since I don't have a 300 I have to go with the 400 and do my best. I can get some really great tight shots with the 400 but it's also very difficult working in such a tight space.

I'm happy I got Coleman's shot that tied the game with 4 seconds to go. I'm going to run it as my lead-in photo to Anthony Amobi's article on the game.

We applied for credentialed access to the NCAA 1st and 2nd round at Comcast Center on March 23 and March 25. We haven't heard back yet but I'm cautiously optimistic we'll be granted the credential. We've covered every women's home game this season (as well as a few away games) and I think that Maryland now supports our efforts. I hope to hear soon if we were granted access or not.

Baseball is about to get into full swing, and softball played it's first game this past week. Lacrosse also played this weekend and plays again up at Mount St Mary's on Tuesday at 3pm. I probably won't go since it's pretty far away.

A wheel on my Think Tank broke lose in the airport on Saturday. I need to return the bag and get a new one. Hopefully Kirk will help me out!