All-Met Guard to Play for Georgia

H.D. Woodson All-Met girls' basketball senior guard Ronika Ransford has orally committed to Georgia, according to Warriors Coach Frank Oliver.

Oliver said Ransford made the decision Sunday after returning from an official visit to the Athens campus over the weekend. She had also taken official visits to Rutgers and Kentucky and had planned visits to Louisville and California.

A versatile 5-foot-6 guard who is a fearless defender with terrific quickness, Ransford has been a star with the Warriors since her freshman season, when she averaged 12 points per game and put up 31 in the D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association title game win over Roosevelt. Last season, she averaged 17.5 points per game and led Woodson to its second straight City Title, scoring 21 points in the championship game win over Good Counsel. In her three seasons, the Warriors have never lost a DCIAA game.

Two D.C. public charter school basketball players have accepted college scholarship offers. KIMA's Jonathan Arledge, a 6-9, 220-pound forward, is going to George Mason, and Friendship Collegiate's Brandon Young, a 6-4 guard, is bound for DePaul.

Roosevelt Coach Departs

Theodore Roosevelt girls' basketball coach Tyrone Pittman has resigned and will not be back this season. Former assistant Wayne Benson will take over the program, according to Roosevelt Athletic Director Daryl Tilghman.

Pittman, who is not a teacher in the D.C. public schools, elevated the Rough Riders from one of the city's struggling programs to one of its most consistent winners. Roosevelt won four games in 2000-01, the season before Pittman took over. By his second season, however, the Rough Riders advanced to the first of six consecutive D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association finals, and they went 120-15 over that six-year span. They won consecutive DCIAA championships in 2004 and '05 and captured their first City Title in 2004, as well, finishing 26-1.

Three Rough Riders earned first-team All-Met recognition under Pittman: Katrina Wheeler (2004), Shanae Brice (2005) and Brittany Hilliard (2007).

'Warm-Up' for Gonzaga

Gonzaga was among eight teams that competed in the first Mid-Atlantic Coast Water Polo Invitational Tournament this past weekend in Sterling. The event was hosted by the Claude Moore Aquatics Club and was the first major tournament of the fall water polo season. Gonzaga lost to Greenwich (Conn.) High School on Saturday, 11-5. Navy Aquatic Club of Annapolis won the event, winning all four matches.

Other teams participating were the Landon School, Cardinal Water Polo (Bishop Ireton's club team), Greenwich (Conn.) Water Polo club and Pittsburgh Water Polo club.

On Sunday, Gonzaga's varsity squad traveled to the Community College of Baltimore County-Catonsville for the Baltimore Challenge, where it beat McDonogh, 11-5, but lost a close match to host school Mount St. Joseph. Gonzaga is led by seniors Dominic Vena and Will Cove on offense, and by senior goalie Patrick Fish in net.

"We see this as a warm-up to the championship tournament" in November, Gonzaga Coach Joe Viola said. "We almost start from scratch at the beginning of the season, unlike some of these other clubs and teams that go year-round. But we come together and improve, and by the end of the season, we're pretty competitive."