Saturday, March 25, 2006
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
PHILADELPHIA -- The women's version of the Big Dance will likely offer quite a show in Albuquerque, N.M., tonight as the regional semifinals of their NCAA basketball tournament get under way and continue through Sunday.
Two belles of the ball will try to help extend second-seeded Maryland's best season in quite some time. The duo are 6-foot-2 forward-center Crystal Langhorne, a Willingboro (N.J.) graduate, and 6-4 forward-center Laura Harper, a Cheltenham (Pa.) grad.
Both players are also former stars for the powerful Philadelphia Belles AAU program.
The Terrapins tonight will be out to dethrone Baylor, last year's Cinderella team that waltzed to the Bears' first national title.
A season ago, Maryland coach Brenda Frese's revival efforts of the onetime national power began to soar with the arrival of Harper and Langhorne. The pair are augmented by other Terrapin stars such as Shay Doron and the freshman duo of Marissa Coleman and Kristi Toliver.
Harper, however, missed most of last season with a ruptured Achilles tendon.
"I've learned to enjoy every day," the Elkins Park native said last fall after successfully healing from the injury.