Laurel Hoopsters Take Part in March Madness

Talk about taking it out on your former coach.

Junior guard Chris Tolson, a Laurel High graduate, surely impressed his former prep coach when he scored 20 points for Hampton in a win at Howard on March 3 in college basketball. One of the Howard assistant coaches is Keith Coutreyer, who coached Tolson at Laurel High and then helped recruit him to Hampton. Coutreyer is in his first season as an assistant at Howard after two years at Hampton.

Tolson and Hampton teammates Milade Lola-Charles (Laurel High) and Wesley Dunning, who grew up in Laurel and played in high school at Gonzaga, will take part in the MEAC tournament. The Pirates can earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tourney with a championship in the MEAC event. Hampton, 21-8 overall, is slated to play on March 9 at 9:30 p.m. in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Leslie Addy, a graduate of Pallotti, played one minute and did not score for Bethany College of West Virginia in a loss at Manchester in Wooster, Ohio in the first round of the NCAA Division III tournament.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Arledge-- a product of the Laurel Boys and Girls Club-- and his George Mason teammates will have to wait until March 13 to see if they are an at-large pick to the Big Dance.

The Patriots (26-6), who had won 16 games in a row, the best streak in the nation, lost on March 6 to VCU in the semifinals of the Colonial Athletic Association tournament in Richmond. Mason was the regular-season champ in the CAA. VCU lost on March 7 to ODU in the title game, 70-65. ODU gets an automatic bid to the NCAA field.

Arldedge, meanwhile, did not see much action this season for Mason.

But as assistant coach Chris Caputo points out, Arledge was a freshman forward playing behind upperclassmen on the team that was ranked among the top 25 teams in the country at one point in the coaches' poll.

"He has a chance to be a very good player," Caputo said during last weekend's CAA tournament in Richmond. "He has all the makings of a guy who can be a major contributor and possibly an all-conference player at some point." Arledge, who attended KIMA charter school, attracted attention from Georgetown and other major programs before heading to Mason.

Arledge played the last minute and had one rebound on March 5 as Mason beat Georgia State, 68-45, in Richmond.

The Patriots won the regular-season title in the CAA and entered the tourney with a 15-game win streak, the longest in the nation. Arledge played a few minutes on March 6 as Mason lost, 79-63, in the CAA semifinals to VCU, who then lost on Monday to ODU in the title game.

Another player with ties to Laurel, Shane Reybold, also took part in the CAA tourney in Richmond. A Laurel resident, Reybold is a graduate of Reservoir High in Howard County and was a walk-on freshman forward this season for North Carolina-Wilmington. The Seahawks were the No. 8 seed in the tourney and faced No. 9 seed Georgia State on March 4 in the first game of the event.

Reybold played four minutes off the bench in the first half against Georgia State and missed his only shot from the field. But he did have one rebound and the only steal for his team in the first 20 minutes.

He did not play in the second half as the Seahawks lost, 58-52, to end their season. The first four games of the CAA tourney were all decided by six points or less, the first time that had happened since 1998.

In regular-season play Reybold appeared in 15 games off the bench and averaged 4.5 minutes and 0.3 points per game. One of the highlights of his season came in February at Towson, when he saw key minutes and his team came back from 22 points down to win. "That was exciting. I had a lot of family there," Reybold said. Reybold said he plans to remain at UNC-Wilmington next season.

Pat Kennedy, the Towson head coach, resigned on Monday after his team lost all 19 league games this season.

Brittney Jackson, a Laurel High grad, scored five points as a senior guard for Bowie State in a loss to Johnson C. Smith on March 4 in the Division II CIAA semifinals. The Bulldogs ended the year 18-10 overall.

Laurel High grad Will Alston had 13 points March 5 for Division II Valdosta State in a loss to Arkansas Tech in the semifinals of the Gulf South Conference tournament. A junior transfer, Alston was among the top scorers this season as his team was 21-9.

Leon Porter (St. Vincent Pallotti High) of Laurel scored 18 points on March 1 but it was not enough as Dominican College of New York lost to Post University, 71-68, in the quarterfinals of the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference tourney. Porter, a sophomore guard, averaged 14.6 points per game this season, second on the team. He was the top newcomer in the league as a freshman.