Last week, the eight qualifiers for the Virginia High School League Class AAA championships were determined.

These are some of my favorite games of the season, at the semifinal round of the four regional championships. These are called “tipping point” matches because if you win the regional semifinal game, you’re guaranteed at least two more games — the regional championship game and a quarterfinal game in the VHSL state tournament.

This means that coaches and players will often take as many risks in this game than in the sum total of the entire season.

This year, there were three debutantes for the state tournament. In the Central Region, Midlothian Cosby (Va.) earned its ticket with a come-from-behind 2-1 win over Richmond Mills E. Godwin (Va.). Cosby’s team, realize, is only in its fourth season, but has built upon the training afforded by a number of good club teams in the greater Richmond area to improve rapidly. Cosby, however, would lose to defending three-time champion Chester Thomas Dale (Va.).

In the Southeast Region, Suffolk Lakeland (Va.) defeated Hampton Kecoughtan (Va.) 2-0. Lakeland had made the Southeast Regionals for nine straight seasons, but could never get a state tournament berth despite having a number of players who have proved themselves at the next levels such as Darcy Pinchbeck, Katelyn Smither, and Kelsey Cutchins. But last Thursday, the Cavs finally broke through. The euphoria was such that it might not have mattered that Lakeland lost by three to Virginia Beach Frank W. Cox (Va.) in the Southeast final.

“It feels good to finally make it past the point that we’ve hit every single year,” said Kelsey Smither, the younger sister of Katelyn and the nation’s assist leader. “I could tell that it was frustrating every year, making it to this point and stopping. I’ve been here a couple of years, and I’ve made it to this point and had to stop, and now I’ve made it, and it feels really, really good. All the other teams before us would be very proud.”

And in the Northern Region, Lorton South County Secondary (Va.) defeated Fairfax (Va.) 3-2 in overtime. South County was built in 2005, and took students from neighboring Springfield Lee (Va.), Burke Lake Braddock (Va.), and Alexandria Hayfield (Va.). The Stallions, unlike Cosby and Lakeland, managed to win the region. South County defeated Fairfax W. T. Woodson (Va.) 4-2 in penalty strokes after 90 minutes of scoreless play.

Not to be outdone, Stafford Mountain View (Va.), a team which might have been about three inches away from playing for a state championship in 2006 in only its second year of existence, is back in the state quarterfinal round coming out of the Northwest Region. The Wildcats blanked Haymarket Battlefield (Va.) 6-0 to get into the state tournament, and will go in alongside Stafford North Stafford (Va.) after the Wolverines eliminated Fredericksburg Stafford (Va.).

So you have four programs in the VHSL tournament which are new to the VHSL championship, with four much more experienced teams. Should be interesting on numerous levels.

Last weekend, your Founder took time off from field hockey to see what has come to pass in the world of women’s collegiate lacrosse.

For it was in the nation’s capital where a sea of blue and orange appeared when cresting the hill on which Georgetown University is built.

It was stunning to watch — the University of Florida women’s lacrosse team, months before playing its first timed, scored, and umpired match, already has a following. The first several rows of seats were filled with people wearing Florida gear.

For fall ball.

What’s going on here? Is women’s lacrosse sweeping the consciousness the way women’s soccer did in the summer of 1999?

The passion certainly appears to be there.

Late Thursday night, Mountain Top Crestwood (Pa.) met Wyoming Valley Conference Division 1 rival Kingston Wyoming Seminary (Pa.) for roughly the 80th time dating back to 1973, when Crestwood played its first varsity season.

It’s not exactly known what the all-time record in this series is between the two teams, but rare was the time that so much was on the line when the teams met for the PIAA District 2 Class AA championships.

For those of you just joining us, the participation level of teams amongst small schools in the six counties that make up District 2 is such that only one team advances to the PIAA Tournament.

Naturally, Crestwood and Wyoming Seminary played another classic, with the Big Red coming out with a 1-0 win over Sem, the No. 3 team in the TopOfTheCircle.com Top 10.

The result was a highly unsatisfying result for Wyoming Seminary, which is the defending PIAA Class AA champion, but won’t even be in the tournament this year. The Blue Knights put forth an extremely valiant effort this season after the graduation of three high-school All-Americans over the last two seasons. The defense of goalkeeper Sierra Segear and center back Madeleine Hackett have had magnificent seasons, and the attack was bolstered by JaJa Kentwell, a member of the East Coast Juniors field hockey team of the U.S. men’s national developmental program.

The presence of Kentwell on the team rankled many. His speed, craft, and touch were far better than the vast majority of his peers, and his mere presence rekindled the debate over the growing role of males in the sport in the United States. Unlike his ECJ teammates Blaise Falk and Lucas Long (last year’s national scoring leader), Kentwell was not relied on as much for goal scoring.

On the other hand, Crestwood’s attack this season has been paced by junior Jenna Chrismer, but the player who stirs the drink for the Comets is goalkeeper Kylie Licata. Her outstanding play has her heading to Penn State next year.

Crestwood will be playing the winner of the bronze-medal match of the District 3-AA tournament between Lancaster (Pa.) Mennonite and Palmyra (Pa.) — and if it is the latter, it could be an absolute flamethrower of a game. And in the game after that, Crestwood will be facing either the loser of the Mennonite-Palmyra game or the winner of today’s District 11-AA final between Lehighton (Pa.) and Centerville Southern Lehigh (Pa.).

Consider that the likes of Selinsgrove (Pa.), Mount Joy Donegal (Pa.) and Malvern Villa Maria (Pa.) are seeded into this bracket, and you’ll understand that Crestwood has gone from one tough tournament into what could be the toughest state tournament in the United States this fall.

And the winner — whoever that might be — will have truly earned it.

This week’s Statwatch includes information from, amongst others, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Camden Courier-Post, The Louisville Courier-Journal, The North County Times, LancasterOnline, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Camden Courier-Post, The Hampton-Roads Daily Press, The Easton Express-Times, The Harrisburg Patriot-News, The Newark Star-Ledger, The Trenton Times, The Virginian-Pilot, The Citizen’s Voice, The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, and the Denver Post:

TEAM GOALS SCORED, SEASON
163 Voorhees Eastern (N.J.)
155 Yorktown Tabb (Va.)
153 Emmaus (Pa.)
134 Ocean City (N.J.)
121 Millersville Penn Manor (Pa.)
117 Selinsgrove (Pa.)
112 Pocomoke (Md.)
110 Shrub Oak Lakeland (N.Y.)
109 Malvern Villa Maria (Pa.)
99 Bridgewater-Raritan (N.J.)
95 Scarborough (Maine)

INDIVIDUAL GOALS SCORED, SEASON
51 Jill Witmer, Millersville Penn Manor (Pa.)
50 Kelsey Mitchell, Voorhees Eastern (N.J.)
45 Alley Evans, Emmaus (Pa.)
45 Colleen Slaughter, Ocean City (N.J.)
43 Lexi Smith, Florence (N.J.) Memorial
41 Carlee Dragon, Bridgewater-Raritan (N.J.)
37 Brenna Rescigno, West Long Branch Shore Regional (N.J.)
36 Colleen Patterson, Yorktown Tabb (Va.)
35 Taylor Rhea, Virginia Beach Frank W. Cox (Va.)
33 Brooke Gogel, Bronxville (N.Y.)
34 Nell O’Connor, Harwich (Mass.)
33 Taryn Schawillie, East Rochester (N.Y.)
33 Hope Burke, Selinsgrove (Pa.)
32 Emma Bozek, Shrub Oak Lakeland (N.Y.)
32 Jamie Robinson, West Deptford (N.J.)
31 Kristin Heaney, Allendale Northern Highlands (N.J.)
31 Kendell Combs, Suffolk Lakeland (Va.)

INDIVIDUAL ASSISTS, SEASON
27 Kelsey Smither, Suffolk Lakeland (Va.)
24 Kate Barber, St. Louis Lafayette (Mo.)
21 Sarah Muchowski, Florence (N.J.) Memorial
21 Carlee Dragon, Bridgewater-Raritan (N.J)
21 Hope Burke, Selinsgrove (Pa.)
20 Erika Euker, Yorktown Tabb (Va.)
20 Christine Hibler, St. Louis Lafayette (Mo.)

INDIVIDUAL GOALS SCORED, CAREER
153 Kelsey Mitchell, Voorhees Eastern (N.J.)
113 Taryn Schawillie, East Rochester (N.Y.)
109 Taylor Rhea, Virginia Beach Frank W. Cox (Va.)
108 Jill Witmer, Millersville Penn Manor (Pa.)
102 Alley Evans, Emmaus (Pa.)
86 Colleen Slaughter, Ocean City (N.J.)
75 Colleen Patterson, Yorktown Tabb (Va.)
75 Megan DeMarco, Hammonton St. Joseph (N.J.)
65 Tollie Bell, Norfolk Maury (Va.)
65 Kristin Heaney, Allendale Northern Highlands (N.J.)
65 Cara Witte, Virginia Beach Frank W. Cox (Va.)

INDIVIDUAL ASSISTS, CAREER
73 Kelsey Smither, Suffolk Lakeland (Va.)
72 Erika Euker, Yorktown Tabb (Va.)
71 Jill Witmer, Millersville Penn Manor (Pa.)

WINNING STREAK, TEAM
45 Yorktown Tabb (Va.)

GOALKEEPER SHUTOUTS, CAREER
57 Danielle Brookover, Yorktown Tabb (Va.)

As always, let us know if we’re missing something and we’ll endeavor to do better next week.

This morning, after seemingly having its season ended by hazing allegations. East Stroudsburg University was given the third seed in the South Regional of the NCAA Division II field hockey tournament.

Even more shocking? The university is allowing the team to play this Saturday at Shippensburg with the winner going to the Division II Final Four at Stonehill.

The press release sent out to the local media does not comment as to why this is the case. But the mere fact that the team is being allowed to play in the national tournament after forfeiting its conference tournament speaks volumes about the difficulty intercollegiate athletic departments have in policing hazing and other misconduct on the part of student-athletes.

But in this case, it shouldn’t have been that difficult. Whether it’s stealing a bell clapper at Princeton, or assembling a police car on the dome of MIT’s main building, or kidnapping the goat at the Naval Academy, there’s no need to institute zero-tolerance orders on pranksters when there are more serious health and safety issues to be dealt with.

ESU’s athletic department mistrapped the ball here.

For some of you, the names on the Friday Statwatch are teammates. For others, they’re daughters. For others, they are “the girl you’ve gotta watch out for.”

But if you look at the top single-season goal-scorers from last Friday’s list, you’re seeing the makings of a lot of field hockey history.

Last night, Jill Witmer, the fine attacking midfielder for Millersville Penn Manor (Pa.), scored her 51st goal of the season. She’s already in select company, as only 23 other players in the recorded history of scholastic field hockey have ever gotten to 50 goals in a season.

Thing is, there may be up to five other players joining her before too long. The last time as many as three players got 50 goals in a season was when Hope Sanborn of Walpole (Mass.), Sharon Landau of Mamaroneck Rye Neck (N.Y.), and Sue Finney of Montclair (N.J.) each hit the 50-goal plateau in 1985.

Alley Evans sits with 47 after a hat trick late Friday, a hat trick that earned the junior her 100th career goal. She’s the first player in the 50-year history of the storied Emmaus (Pa.) program to attain 100 goals in her junior season. That’s amazing, considering the luminaries that have come through the program like Cindy Werley and Autumn Welsh and Kristen McCann and Laree Beans and Tina Bortz and Kristina Edmonds — and, of course, Rachel, Tara, and Erin Jennings.

After tonight’s match against Stroudsburg (Pa.), Evans will have, at most, five more games this season to get to 50 for the season.

Late last week, Kelsey Mitchell, the Iowa-bound senior forward from the powerful Voorhees Eastern (N.J.) hockey program, had seven goals in two games against Plumsted New Egypt (N.J.) and Vineland (N.J.). She now has 151 goals in her career, and only five other players — Kelly Fitzpatrick, Carla Tagliente, Kim Miller, Tracey Fuchs, and Landau — have ever had more in the history of the National Federation.

But Mitchell’s next goal, which could come as early as this afternoon when the Vikings take on Galloway Absegami (N.J.), will put her in singular company. Nobody, in the 100 years that they’ve been playing scholastic field hockey in the eight counties that make up the territory colloquially called “South Jersey,” has ever scored 50 goals in a season.

That’s right; nobody. Not even legends and lumniatires such as Laura (Bryn) Darling, or Maryanna Watson, or Shaun Banta, or Abbey Woolley, or Lori Vile, or Kelly Malinoski, or Olympians such as Liz Tchou or Kelli James or Rachel Dawson have hit 50 goals in a season. It’s an odd statistic borne of accidental history rather than excellence — kind of like how no driver with the last name of Smith (the most prevalent surname in the United States) has ever driven in the Indianapolis 500.

Of course, part of the explanation is the fact that most coaches for the last 99 years in South Jersey have never had a player like Mitchell, or a program like Eastern; and not many players have been coached by the likes of varsity head coach Danyle Heilig or middle-school coach Ed Kirkwood.

But there’s one significant cultural reason why no South Jersey field hockey player has ever had 50 goals in a season. South Jersey has held fast to Constance Applebee’s way of teaching the game since the first known scholastic field hockey game 100 years ago this month.

Coaches rarely left their players on the pitch once the game was out of reach; given the inherent risk of injury with the modified billy clubs of the day, plus using a used cricket ball on grass (no shin guards, remember) it was a given that a secure result meant putting in other players to give them experience. Consider also that overtime wasn’t used in South Jersey regular-season matches until less than 10 years ago. Also, many of the best programs often never put their ninth-graders on their varsity rosters, even during the Futures era of player development.

Opposite that ethic, however, is the case of Florence (N.J.) Memorial, and the fourth-ranked scorer from last week’s Statwatch, Lexi Smith. The freshman, who plays center midfielder for the Flashes, got her 44th goal of the season on Monday afternoon in a playoff match against Riverside (N.J.).

If she gets six more this season, she’ll be the first freshman in the recorded history of the National Federation to get 50 goals in a season. And if you do the math over four years, the potential statistical goldmine could be mindboggling.

Now, as of last Friday, Colleen Slaughter of Ocean City (N.J.) was just one behind Smith. She has since added five to her total which stands at 43, and her career total stands at 84. With as many as six games remaining in the season if Ocean City makes the Tournament of Champions final, she has a great chance at 50 as well.

The same goes for Carlee Dragon of Bridgewater-Raritan (N.J.), who was just one behind Slaughter as of the Statwatch reporting period, and proceeded to score one against Summit Oak Knoll (N.J.) last Thursday. The Panthers have up to seven more games if they win through to the Tournament of Champions final.

The next three weeks could be interesting and exciting — as long as the players don’t let the pursuit records get to their heads.

This week’s Top 10 is pretty much stabilized, but a number of games featuring top teams playing each other could shake things up a bit; Penn Manor and Emmaus are still deserved co-No. 1s.

This week’s RightToRightIsRight.com No. 11 Team of the Week is the U.S. men’s national team, which took one of four Tests against Canada over the weekend.

1T. Emmaus (Pa.) — 20-0-1

Caught a break when their next opponent, Stroudsburg (Pa.), defeated Allentown William Allen (Pa.) in 11-AAA quarterfinals

1T. Millersville Penn Manor (Pa.) — 22-0-1

Key match tonight in 3-AAA tournament against Hummelstown Lower Dauphin (Pa.)

3. Kingston Wyoming Seminary (Pa.) — 19-0

Expected showdown later this week in 2-AA tournament with Mountain Top Crestwood (Pa.)

4. Virginia Beach Frank W. Cox (Va.) — 18-0

Southeast Region tournament this week sends two teams to Class AAA Tournament

5. Voorhees Eastern (N.J.) — 17-2

Recorded their seventh and eighth 10-0 result last week

6. Lehighton (Pa.) — 20-0

Has an 11-AA semifinal against Bethlehem Moravian Academy (Pa.) before a possible showdown against Southern Lehigh this Saturday

7. Darien (Conn.) — 14-0

Takes on Wilton (Conn.) in a Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference semifinal match

8. Center Valley Southern Lehigh (Pa.) — 20-0

Needs to get past Hellertown Saucon Valley (Pa.) 4-0 to make 11-AA final

9. Greene (N.Y.) — 16-0

Plays for the Section IV championship this Saturday against Vestal (N.Y.)

10. Palmyra (Pa.) — 19-2-1

Tonight’s 3-AA quarterfinal against Mount Joy Donegal (Pa.) should be an absolute firecracker

11. U.S. men’s national team — 1-3

World Cup qualifications in Argentina is the next task for the Boys in Blue

Who’s out: None.

And bear in mind: Escondido San Pasqual (Calif.) 14-2, San Diego Torrey Pines (Calif.) 13-6-1, San Diego Scripps Ranch (Calif.) 12-5, Fallbrook (Calif.) Union 15-5, Greenwich (Conn.) Academy 15-0-2, Wilmington Tower Hill (Del.) 12-1, Lewes Cape Henlopen (Del.) 13-0-1, Louisville Assumption (Ky.) 18-7, Gardiner (Maine) 18-0, Scarborough (Maine) 18-0, Hatfield Acton-Boxborough (Mass.) 18-0, Hatfield Smith Academy (Mass.) 16-2, St. Louis St. Joseph’s Academy (Mo.) 17-3-1, St. Louis Lafayette (Mo.) 18-3, Bridgewater-Raritan (N.J.) 20-0, Whitney Point (N.Y.) 15-1-1, Garden City (N.Y.) 13-1, East Setauket Ward Melville (N.Y.) 13-1, Shrub Oak Lakeland (N.Y.) 16-0-1, Marathon (N.Y.) 14-2, Charlotte (N.C.) Latin 16-0, Malvern Villa Maria (18-1), Hummelstown Lower Dauphin (Pa.) 16-4, Selinsgrove (Pa.) 18-1, Allentown Parkland (Pa.) 17-2, Mount Joy Donegal (Pa.) 17-4, Yorktown Tabb (Va.) 18-0, Suffolk Lakeland (Va.) 17-1

Today’s Game of the Day
Martinsville Pingry School at Summit Oak Knoll (N.J.), 2 p.m.
Oak Knoll had scheduled a match against North Caldwell West Essex (N.J.) for this date, but the quarterfinals of the Group I North 2 tournament takes precedence here. Both teams have won Group I championships in the 2000s.

Yep, that Skowhegan, which had won the last eight straight state championships.

Maintaining excellence over the course of time — a week, a month, a season –  is one of the most difficult things to do in the game of field hockey. Games are played on different competition surfaces at different times of the year. Random occurrences such as injury and illness can often affect play.

And, most importantly, goals are rare. It’s not like in basketball or lacrosse where a good stretch of sustained play can result in an insurmountable lead.

That’s why the decade of the 2000s is defined by the sustained excellence of Skowhegan, Voorhees Eastern (N.J.), and Lakeville Hotchkiss School (Conn.). Alongside Skowhegan’s string of eight straight title, Eastern has won 10 straight state championships, and Hotchkiss has won seven straight New England Preparatory Schools Athletic Conference championships.

These postseason tournament championship streaks are amongst the most amazing team feats in the 100-year history of scholastic field hockey in the United States.

They go right up there with West Long Branch Shore Regional (N.J.) and its string of 39 straight division championships, Emmaus (Pa.) and its streak of 20 straight PIAA District 11 championships, and the fact that Oklahoma City Casady (Okla.) never lost a game from 1956 to 1969.

Which do you think is the most impressive?

Last Friday morning, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body that determines how Internet domain names are applied, assigned, and used, voted to allow countries to allow countries to register domain names in their own languages.

For example, if this site was in Chinese, you could actually type in 圈子的上面 into your browser. Or in Japan, the Kanji characters are 円の上. When in Greece, you could type in Κορυφή του κύκλου. Or use Cyrillic characters such as Верхняя часть круга.

I had a discussion on this subject with a woman in my building whose expertise is in international security issues, and she believes that the registration of international domain names in their native languages could very well reopen the Wild West atmosphere of the Web endemic in the early days of the Web browser. She has a point: pornographers, terrorists, and hate groups could simply hide behind foreign-language domain names in order to promote their twisted products and messages.

Of course, it also means that cybercrime investigators in countries whose languages use the Roman alphabet will have to start learning Chinese and Hindi and Mandarin and Arabic. By the same token, however, monitors in India and Korea and Saudi Arabia won’t have to learn languages using Roman letters in order to do their work.

I find this interesting on several levels. The National Basketball Association rolled out a revamped Web presence for Spanish speakers. But instead of promoting it as nba.co.es, or nba.co.mx, or using the two-letter code for a Spanish-speaking country, the page is a subdomain of the NBA.com website.

The location is www.nba.com/enebea, with the pronunciation of the last word being EN-uh-bay-AH, which is the phonetic pronunciation of the letters NBA. The league’s clever marketers have also created a wordmark for this site, ”éne·bé·a.”

Under the new ICANN rules, could the term “énebéa” (complete with accents) be used to register a site in a Spanish-speaking country? Could Yahoo! or the Jeopardy! game show register their sites in a country where Khosi (which uses the exclamation point to signify the insertion of a click) is the native language?

This could be an opportunity for the convergence of language.

Today’s Game of the Day
Lawrenceville (N.J.) at Greenwich (Conn.) Academy, 2 p.m.
After Greenwich Academy’s tie last Wednesday against Loomis, the Gators take on a Big Red team which has seized the point in the Mid-Atlantic Prep League. Lawrenceville, however, has not played a game in 10 days. This could be interesting.

Reporting in The Pocono Record said the cancellation was over a hazing incident. The act in question? The painting of rocks on the school’s campus.

Is this an overreaction? I think so, but the thing to keep in mind as this story progresses is the role of campus police.

Officers were used to make a fake “chase” of members of the team as they are caught painting messages on large boulders on campus. Remember the scandal in Baltimore a few months ago when a state legislator used police officers to make a fake arrest of his girlfriend during a marriage proposal? These two situations constitute a misuse of police resources that could be used to keep the peace or (gasp!) solve actual crimes.

That might be the real scandal here.