One Game at a Time

The Terps played out-of-town Northern Iowa this evening and put a lot of points on the board. 91-37 was the final tally. 4 Terp starters scored in double figures (Laura Harper, Marissa Coleman, Crystal Langhorne, Marah Strickland, and Kristi Toliver). Kat Lyons also knocked down 2 3 pointers late in the first half to score 6 points. It was great to see Kat score - she's a freshman guard who's looking to find her feet. Hitting 2 three pointers must have given her a confidence boost.

There really isn't much else to talk about with respect to the Terps in this game. There wasn't much competition offered by the Panthers, so it was a big stats booster for the team. Before gametime Coach Frese presented game balls to Crystal Langhorne and Kristi Toliver. Langhorne became the all time leading rebounder for the Terps, and Toliver eclipsed the 1,000 point plateaus. I believe that 4 current Maryland players are now over the 1,000 point plateau (Toliver, Langhorne, Coleman, and Harper). It's pretty remarkable.

As usual there were very few photographers present. Diamondback was there, as was Greg Fiume. Nick Waas from the AP shot from up in the stands for much of the first and second half. Yuchen has been absent for the last few games - I need to check in with him to see what he's up to. I shot from the baseline in the first half and then went up high for the second. I got some great shots from up there.

Please go read my article and take a look at my photos. I'm always looking for critiques and ideas for places to shoot from!

Two local teams faced each other tonight: Morgan State and the University of Maryland. The Terps emerged victorious due in large part to solid ball handling in the second half and 5 3 pointers by Eric Hayes. Vasquez also got back on the scoring side of the fence and hit 17 points. Gist had 18, and Osby banged in 6 field goals and 4 free throws. Please go read my article over on the DC Sports Box.

I had a lot of fun shooting the game this evening. My only regret is that I used my D2H on my short lens, and as a result the quality of my photos is not very good. They're kind of grainy... I think I might try my D200 on my 17-55 lens during the next game for my under-the-basket coverage. It just does better in low light.

Tomorrow night I'll be shooting the women's basketball game at Comcast. The men play their ACC opener on Sunday against Boston College and I have no idea if we'll receive credentials or not. Hopefully we'll at least get reporter credentials and that will allow me to walk around with my 400 lens and shoot from the stadium.

The Terps came home and played this evening against Middle Tennessee. Maryland sure looks tired... I can't blame them - as of December 9th's game against Temple the Terps will have played 14 games in a month. That's almost 1 game every other day!

There's also a flu bug going around the locker room. A couple of players had to leave the post game press conference early to take care of themselves! The team sure has played hard. I'm sure they've learned alot about themselves and each other having played so many games in such a short period of time.

Middle Tennessee shot a lot of 3 pointers tonight. They knocked down 7 of them in the first half and that really kept them competitive. During the second half Maryland had a tough time on rebounding. But Kristi Toliver came through with her offensive prowess and hit a 3 pointer that gave the Terps the lead with 4:17 to go. She then followed it up with a rebound and a coast-to-coast drive and a bucket. That sparked the team's offense and Maryland held on to win it 74-69.

There were about a dozen people present tonight total. It snowed in the DC area today and the roads were in terrible shape.

Please go take a look at my article and my photos over at the DC Sports Box.

The Terps traveled to Piscataway NJ to take on Rutgers this evening. I didn't invest in the 3 hour travel up to NJ, but a few people I know went. I saw Yuchen on TV and Greg talked about going. I'm not sure if he actually headed up there or not though.

Terps did well in the first half and went into the half up 10, but fell apart in the second half as a result of Rutger's defense. Epiphany Prince also came to life and shot out the lights. A big 3 pointer by her gave the Scarlet Knights the lead and the momentum. I wrote an article about it and used a file photo for the photo. You can read more about it over here.

Maryland is back in town on Wednesday night to play Middle Tennessee. The men also play on Thursday I believe against Morgan State. I'll hopefully be at both games.

The Terps are playing the BB&T Classic and fortunately we have a credentialed reporter and photographer present at Verizon Center. Since I'm trying to spread the wealth around with my fellow reporters I decided to cover the Wrestling dual this afternoon. This was a first for me: I've never shot or written about wrestling before. It was in Comcast Pavilion so I was familiar with the venue, but I was unfamiliar with the players or how the game is tallied.

My photos came out so-so. Wrestling is a lot slower than volleyball so I was able to slow down my shutter to 1/120 - 1/200th. Down around 1/120th I got some motion blur. Up at 1/200th it was dark at times (at 1600 ISO). It was difficult to work with a black mat. The players faces look down for the most part and the black light doesn't reflect very well.

Please go over to the DC Sports Box and read my article!

The Terps played the Braves in the third round of the 2007 NCAA Tournament. The Terps were looking for a College Cup but their hopes were dashed after a 2-0 lead dwindled to a tie in the final 2 minutes of regulation. The Terps played solidly in double overtime but fell with 1:31 remaining in the second overtime on a redirected header. You can read more about it and see my pictures over at the DC Sports Box.

This was a very difficult shoot. The lighting was abysmal as usual, but it was unusually cold. It was about 35 degrees at game time and there was some wind to make it feel colder. I had on my convertible mittens (yay) and they helped, but there's only so much heat you can retain after being outdoors in 35 degree weather for 3 hours. Towards the end my fingers and toes were numb. I was hoping for the Terps to pull it out so that we could go home after regulation, but the Braves forced the double overtime.

I chatted with Yuchen and Greg for awhile tonight and listened to my iPhone. It was fun listening to Greg talk about some of the jobs he's done. He's gone to the Olympics and it was neat to listen to him talk about working with the media people here and what they're like. Maybe I'll write more about it some time later. But for now I'm sleepy and cold so I'm going to go jump into my warm bed!

Tomorrow I'm shooting a wrestling match. I have no idea what that's going to be like...

The Terps participated in the Inaugural Big Ten/ACC Women's Challenge this evening by facing off against the Ohio State Buckeyes. The Buckeyes were ranked #19 and the Terps are currently ranked #3, so this promised to be a close game. Strangely it was not. The Terps blew the Buckeyes out of the water this evening and really looked sharp. I was over at soccer earlier shooting and it took me quite awhile to make it over to Comcast in time for the jumpball, but I made it in time. The usual folks were there, along with several other photographers I haven't seen before. The game was televised on ESPN2 I believe and as a result it's no surprise there were more photographers present. Anthony Amobi did the game writeup and shot the photos. You can view them up on the DC Sports Box.