Basketball

Adonijah Gilmore, center, and the rest of his South Middle School seventh-grade basketball teammates run wind sprints after practice Wednesday at the Martinsburg (W.Va.) Boys & Girls Club.

The Hedgesville at Martinsburg boys basketball games scheduled for Friday have been postponed until Saturday due to the weather-related closure of schools in Berkeley County, school officials said. Gates at the Martinsburg field house will open at 9:30 a.m. The freshman game will begin at 10:30 a.m., followed by the junior varsity and varsity games. The varsity game will start at approximately 1:15 p.m. The event is a sellout. No tickets will be sold at the door. Tickets already purchased will be honored.

You gotta love it, baby! Former West Virginia University basketball standout, NBA player and professional broadcaster Rodney "Hot Rod" Hundley is coming to Martinsburg as part of the Chocolate Fest and Book Faire on Saturday, April 27. Hundley's appearance highlights the two-day event, which kicks off Saturday at The Arts Center, 300 W. King, and highlights chocolate and books. Tickets cost $50. It's been years since Hundley has made his way back to Martinsburg. Back then, he said, he had made a stop in the Eastern Panhandle.

Taking care of their own

Mason-Dixon Summer League At St. Maria Goretti H.S. Middletown 41, Williamsport 40 Middletown: Tyler Ausherman 15 points. Williamsport: Will Taylor 18 points. St. Maria Goretti 66, Frederick 63 Goretti: Kevin Breslin 25 points; Logan Bollinger 17 points. Frederick: Steve Custus 25 points.

Watch out, Charles Barkley. You might have some competition for your endorsement deal. Barkley has been telling overweight guys to “Lose like a man.” Will Taylor would take it a step farther. “And play like a winner.” Taylor's biggest loss since leaving Hagerstown Community College was 40 pounds. His gains? The opportunity to play professional basketball in Portugal after graduating from Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo. “Four or five years ago, I never thought this would happen,” said Taylor, a Williamsport native.

By MARLO BARNHART Staff Writer When Jim Brown was a young basketball coach at Hancock High School from 1959 to 1966, he looked forward to playing Shad Hunt's teams from St. Maria Goretti High School. "His teams were always intense because he was so intense," Brown said upon learning of Hunt's death Wednesday. Hunt coached basketball at Goretti for 11 years. Brown, who is now athletic director at Hagerstown Junior College, said Hunt was an excellent coach. "He was also such a positive role model for his kids," Brown said.

Pat Wharton, left, and Chad Murdock play basketball Wednesday outside Wharton's Whispering Hills home in Smithsburg.

Raymond Hoy jumps high to dunk a basketball Tuesday at Wheaton Park in Hagerstown as Earl Thorne watches.

Alivia Keller, 2 1/2, gets a helping hand from her mother, Liz Keller, Tuesday while the two play basketball with a family friend, Jackie Brown, at Elgin Park in Hagerstown.

The Saint James boys basketball program has its new head coach, and he comes from a school with a national background. After 11 years as an assistant coach at Montrose Christian, Dan Prete is ready to once again guide his own program. Saints athletic director Jim Fahey announced that Prete, 43, was his choice from a pool of applicants to succeed Paul Easton, who resigned following two years. “We are super excited to get a coach of his caliber,” Fahey said. “He comes highly recommended.

You gotta love it, baby! Former West Virginia University basketball standout, NBA player and professional broadcaster Rodney "Hot Rod" Hundley is coming to Martinsburg as part of the Chocolate Fest and Book Faire on Saturday, April 27. Hundley's appearance highlights the two-day event, which kicks off Saturday at The Arts Center, 300 W. King, and highlights chocolate and books. Tickets cost $50. It's been years since Hundley has made his way back to Martinsburg. Back then, he said, he had made a stop in the Eastern Panhandle.

You know, I've been doing this media thing for a little time now. Those of you that know me know my dome is bathed in gray as I continue my trek into the 60s, and I don't mean the year. At times I've done television, at times I've done radio, but for the most part it's been behind the desk working in the print business. As you know, or may not, at the end of a prep sports season a newspaper generally selects all-star teams for specific sports. It takes time putting the teams together, believe me. It's not that you just throw names into a hat and presto.

When Amrit Rayfield came to St. Maria Goretti three years ago, he knew his priority was to return the boys basketball program to a level of prominence it once held. That first season, Rayfield experienced what had happened the five previous ones - a losing record - when the Gaels went 8-24. But things began to turn around last year when Goretti went 19-13 and began to show a ray of hope that stretched into the powerful Baltimore Catholic League, where the Gaels had become an easy target.

When Martin Geben steps onto the basketball floor, the fans will not see any razzle and dazzle. What one will see, however, is a young man who brings a lunch pail - also known as workmanlike effort - to the gym. Geben, a 6-foot-9 junior who hails from Vilnius, Lithuania, is the prize catch of St. Maria Goretti and, sometime soon, will be the same for a fortunate NCAA Division I college. Geben was instrumental in leading Goretti to a 21-13 record this season, the first time since 2004-05 that the Gaels exceeded 20 wins in a season.

It's doubtful that Nate Naylor would have figured on winning postseason coaching awards when he took over as head coach of the South Hagerstown girls basketball team two years ago. But Naylor, the full-time head coach this season after a year with the interim tag, followed up a 17-8 season in 2011-12 with a 21-3 mark, which included a 14-0 run through the MVAL Antietam Conference. For the second straight year Naylor is The Herald-Mail's Washington County Girls Basketball Coach of the Year.

When informed she had been named The Herald-Mail's 2012-13 Washington County Girls Basketball Player of the Year, South Hagerstown's Katrice Dickson had a quick response. “Honestly, I am very honored, but I want to thank my team and coaches for pushing me in getting this far,” Dickson said. For the third straight year, Dickson is a first-team All-County performer, but she adds the top honor as a junior in a year in which South won the MVAL Antietam Conference with a 14-0 record and finished overall with a 21-3 record.

Hagerstown Community College officials announced Wednesday that the school's basketball court and first floor arena space will be named after former athletic director and men's basketball coach Jim Brown, a leading advocate for the facility. Although the court will be known as the “Coach Jim Brown Court and Basketball Arena,” the building that houses the basketball court will still be known as the Athletic, Recreation and Community Center, Elizabeth K. Stull, HCC's director of public information, said Wednesday.

The eighth Buffalo Wild Wings Roundball Classic is just ahead as 230 players from 110 different schools representing four states and the District of Columbia converge on North Hagerstown High School. Organizer Dave Foltz has another seven-game agenda on tap Saturday on the Hubs floor, featuring five boys games and two girls contests. Over the history of the event, more than $24,000 has been raised for various charities and organizations. Proceeds this year will benefit the Avery Snyder Memorial Fund, which supports sports camps for underprivileged children.

The Hagerstown Community College men's basketball team experienced the long and the short of championship basketball. It was a long trip and a short stay for the Hawks. HCC had a 1,300-mile trip and a quick turnaround on Monday as Lee College (Texas) held off three comeback bids by the Hawks to take a 104-97 victory in the first round of the NJCAA national tournament. But the real problem for HCC (29-5), the 12th seed in the 24-team single-elimination tournament, was it spent only a short time in the lead and a long time playing catchup.