On Road, Hammond Right at Home

Two Bus Rides Later, Golden Bears Get Back-to-Back No-Hitters From Speierman

Six weeks before the end of her freshman year, Hammond's Hannah Force figured the last place she would be is at school on a Saturday morning at 7.

"I've never come to school this early," she said.

There was no early morning chemistry class. Rather, given this month's rash of rain that has postponed scores of high school games throughout the area, Force and her Hammond softball teammates took a unique approach to making up some of those games.

The Golden Bears left school on a bus bound for a 9 a.m. game at Mount Hebron. Once that ended, they bussed to Centennial for another game, which started just before 11:30. They won both -- 6-0 and 1-0, respectively -- as All-Met pitcher Stephanie Speierman threw her fifth and sixth no-hitters of the season, and pulled within 81 of Megan Elliott's Maryland career strikeout record of 1,345.

Graduation looms a month away, but Hammond and other Maryland public school teams have a more pressing deadline: Complete 14 games before the May 5 draw for the regional tournaments if they want to earn one of the top four seeds in each region. Hammond began this week having played just eight games.

"I had two games that we couldn't make up unless we did something creative," Hammond Athletic Director Joe Russo said. "Who knows? Maybe it'll rain next week."

Al Palmer, who coordinates umpires for Montgomery County, said it's tough trying to get capable umpires when every team is trying to play on the same day.

"It's a scramble," Palmer said. "A lot of guys, with the economy, can't afford to take too much time off from work. But I tell the schools that I'll do anything to accommodate them so they get these games in."

Only three Bears are on travel teams, which sometimes play four or five games in a day. For the rest, not only was it a unique experience, but also -- given the year's warmest day yet, and a teenager's typically chaotic schedule -- the truest test of a high-schooler's supply of energy.

"I told everyone that they had to hydrate their bodies [Friday] to get ready for this," said Speierman, a travel ball veteran who has signed with Michigan. "You have to know how to stay hydrated because it could wear you out."

Her catcher, sophomore Katie McCarthy, is used to playing first base during the summer. In between innings yesterday, McCarthy shed her heavy equipment and sat with icepacks on her neck.

The Mount Hebron game ended at 10:29 and, after the teams shook hands, Hammond eschewed its normal postgame team meeting.