GIRLS LACROSSE: GLENELG'S 'INTENSE' KRISTY BLACK PACES OFFENSIVE ATTACK

 by Lem Satterfield

(see video interviews and highlights below)

In the moments following Thursday's brilliant offensive effort against Centennial, during which her dazzling and fearless athletic display thrilled fans and paced Glenelg to a convincing, 21-6, Howard County League victory, Kristy Black nearly declared herself unfit to appear in a post-game, on-camera interview.

For not only was the senior midfielder's lip bruised, slightly, but her hair band had snapped, leaving her sweat-matted strands in relative disarray.

Black was, nevertheless, as engaging and poised off the field as she was likely to engage a defender or aggressively win a ground ball on the field -- traits she comes by honestly having trailed into athletics, her two older brothers, Rob and Patrick, throughout most of their youth.

Kristy, now 18, followed her siblings into basketball, soccer, lacrosse and ice hockey -- the latter on the same travel team as Patrick, who is 19.

A former Howard County runner-up wrestler, Patrick, Kristy and Robbie, 20, "were together all of the time," said their mother, Kathy Black, whose oldest daughter, Michelle, is 27.

"I literally would take a playpen and put it on the 50-yard line when lacrosse started in Howard County, and Kristy, and Robbie, and Patrick would be in that playpen playing at the Mount Hebron-Centennial games way back then," Kathy Black said.

Kristy even received permission from her father, Brad, to follow the boys into wrestling, "but I said no," said Kathy Black, "although she would wrestle with the boys all the time when they were in practice or whatever."

The athletic rivalries toughened up Kristy Black, said her brother, Robbie.

"She would play with me and my brother a lot -- me and a bunch of other guys in the neighborhood," said Robbie Black, 20, a former Glenelg wrestler and a junior at the University of Maryland.

"She was always trying to tag along with us and play, and I think that's where she picked up some of her stuff, but not all of it," said Robbie Black. "She had to be aggressive, living with us. She's the youngest, trying to compete with me and my younger brother, who is enormous. Me being a few years older, and him being a year older, she was a little peanut."

"She learned to ride a bike quickly. Athletically, things came pretty easy to her. We used to have neighbors who would say, 'she's your most athletic one,'" said Kathy Black.

"She was always intense. In all of our pictures from when she was a little kid, she was like this," said Kathy Black, clasping her hands together tightly and gritting her teeth into a showy grimmace. "You could see her knuckles would be red. She has kind of a quiet intensity."

Black's athleticism was apparent from the opening whistle of Thursday's game at Centennial -- ranked 19th in the DigitalSports/Inside Lacrosse Top 20 -- as she buried the 15th-ranked Gladiators' first shot on goal for a tone-setting, 1-0 lead 24 seconds into the game.

Black netted four of her team's first seven goals and assisted on a fifth as the Gladiators, took over sole possession of first place in the county at 5-0 in the league, and, 7-1 overall.

Black scored the Gladiators' first, fourth, fifth and seventh goals, and assisted their third by Alyssa Felix as Glenelg led, 10-3, at the intermission after firing 15 shots -- all of which were on goal.

Whether using an array of moves and dodges, or simply by using her speed and hustle to scoop ground balls or to simply race beyond the Eagles' defense, Black finished the game with five goals, two assists, a team-high 10 draw-controls and a team-leading five ground balls.

"Kristy Black has a really good first step," said junior teammate Katie Grogan, who, was a catalyst on the draws with Black, senior Alayna Markwordt and sophomore Katie Chase.

Black also was instrumental in one of the game's more spectacular plays when she intercepteda pass from an Eagles' defender, raced toward the goal and fed junior attack Brie Kitchelt for a nifty behind-the-back goal and a lead of 15-5.

"The offense is all new. We're actually all new to each other. I think the returnees are just me, Alayna and [Brie] Kitchelt. We don't really have set-plays, but we're really good at moving off-ball. We're good at talking to each other, and we know when to take it and when not to take it," said Black, who is headed for the University of Maryland to play lacrosse.

"Our team's really good at looking up when they're trying to go through and looking for the open person," said Black.

"My sophomore year, Centennial crushed us twice, so all of the seniors were like, 'we need to get that back.' So, this feels awesome. This is the best feeling in the world, because that was embarrassing," said Black, whose Gladiators play Mount Hebron on April 25.

"This is also our key game to go into our game against Mount Hebron because they beat Mount Hebron by two," Black said. "So it's like, 'If we did this to Centennial, we can do this to Mount Hebron. And Hebron's such a great team."