Mohammad sisters seek a crown

Mohammad sisters chase national crown

Date published: 11/15/2006

By KURT NICOLL

SISTERS MARISSA and Maria Mohammad are one victory away from playing for a national championship.

The former North Stafford High School soccer standouts will be joining their University of Tampa women's teammates in the Division II national semifinals, being played at Pensacola, Fla., this week.

The Spartans (18-2-1) beat Tusculum (Tenn.) College 5-0 for their first-ever quarterfinal-round win and in the process extended their home field winning streak to 35 games.

Although not full-time starters, the two sophomores have contributed to the team's success in a major way.

Marissa Mohammad, a midfielder, has one goal and five assists while seeing action in 20 games. Maria Mohammad, a defender, has six starts among her 17 appearances and has one goal and one assist.

In tomorrow's semifinal pairings, Tampa goes against Grand Valley State (Mich.) and West Chester (Pa.) battles Metro State (Denver, Colo.) in the second game. Starting times were not available at press time.

The cross country teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference put forth a remarkable show of strength at the NCAA Southeast Regional cross country meet held last weekend in Louisville, Ky.

North Carolina State captured both team titles, ACC women's teams swept the top six spots, and the ACC men accounted for four of the top six spots. The Virginia Tech women placed third overall to qualify for the national meet. scheduled Nov. 20 at the University of Notre Dame.

William & Mary kept the outing from being a complete ACC runaway, finishing second on the men's side and seventh on the women.

Noteworthy efforts by area athletes included: Virginia Commonwealth's Reagan Merriam (Massaponax) in 38th (23:57.04), James Madison's Brittany Lussier (North Stafford) in 45th (24:08.78) and Virginia Tech's Devin Cornwell (Culpeper) in fourth (24:48.85).

U.Va.-Wise Ray Damm (Stafford) is on pace to conclude his collegiate tenure a year early, but not before distinguishing himself on the football field and in the classroom.

Damm, a junior, set a school record this season with 65 kicking points (being successful on 6-of-10 field goal attempts), fashioned a respectable 33.9 punting average and earned a berth on the College SID's Academic All-District 3 team with his 3.81 grade-point-average in business administration.

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Date published: 11/15/2006