Fort Hill High School State Girls Volleyball Champions, 2013
On November 16, 2013, Fort Hill became the second Allegany County high school to capture the Maryland State Women's Volleyball Championship. Fort Hill completed a perfect undefeated 19-0 season in College Park by defeating a school from Baltimore County for the 1A title.
In 2008, Fort Hill High School won the Maryland Class 1A State Girls Softball Championship. The team members as depicted in this photograph are as follows:
First row, left to right - Brittany Hines, Lauren Fansler, Adria Lewis, Destiny James, Becca Valentine
Second row - Alyssa Yost, Olivia Stanley, Cierra Miller, Lindsey Fisher, Shari Beavers, Alex Schupfer, Kathryn Huber, Brittany Whiteman, Acacia Squires
The first known girls' basketball game to take place in Allegany County occurred on the afternoon of March 1, 1910. This was an exhibition game between the Blues and the Whites which was played in the basement of Allegany County High School. The girls wore white middies, very full black bloomers, fastened well below the knees, and black cotton stockings. One basket was used during the game which was won by the Whites by a score of 27-25. A girls' athletic association was formed during that same year.
From: "The Golden Jubilee Magazine of Allegany High School, 1889 -1938"
On July 17, 1979 eleven year old Crystal Fields of Cumberland won the national championship in her division in the National Pitch-Hit-Run Competition which was held in Seattle, Washington. A reception in her honor was held later in the week by the Mayor and City Council of Cumberland where Crystal received the, “Key to the City of Cumberland”.
Allegany County resident, Mary Eversole, was the 2006 Maryland State Class A Horseshoe Women’s Champion. She also won this title seven of the last eight years. In 1999, over a period of three days in 95-degree weather, Mary competed against 45 other women in the World Horseshoe Tournament and was a Bronze Medalist.
In her own words, Mary says, “I really enjoy the game. It’s not something I feel I have to do, but something I do because it’s fun. That’s the key to winning.”
Marie Boyd Eichler
It was February 25, 1924 and the six-girl basketball team of Lonaconing Central High School was going up against Ursuline Academy of Cumberland. Lonaconing would go on to win by the lop-sided score of 163 to 3.
Central’s Marie Boyd would go into the Guinness Book of World Records for scoring 156 points in the game. She is still listed first in the National High School Sports Record Book for most points scored and field goals made (77) in a single six-girl basketball game.
The Cumberland Heat
In 1996 the United States Specialty Sports Association (USSSA) authorized women’s fast-pitch softball. It was immediately established in Maryland, and the Cumberland Heat was founded.
The Central High School girls basketball team of Lonaconing holds the Allegany County basketball record for consecutive wins having won 65 games in a row. This was over the course of three seasons; 1922, 1923, and 1924.
Central’s winning streak was snapped by Beall High School in 1924 when they were defeated by a score of 36 to 35 in a Western Maryland Interscholastic League (WMIL) championship playoff game. The WMIL was, at one time, the oldest continuous high school athletic league in the country.
Betty Hodges, Jean Arendes Bibby, and Evelyn Bowie
The Cumberland Country Club (CCC) was established in 1919. The first woman to win the Women's Club Championship was Bess Shearer in 1922. For the next five decades, with the exception of 1943-1947 when no tournaments were held, the above three women were felt to have dominated the golfing scene at the Cumberland Country Club, as well as throughout the area. As noted below, and in addition to golf, they also made their presence known in skiing and tennis.
Jean Bibby was known as “Miss Golf” in Cumberland and is considered the greatest woman golfer in Allegany County history. Between the years 1925 and 1976 Jean Bibby won a total of twenty Cumberland Country Club golf championships, in 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1931, 1932, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1957, 1960, 1968, 1971, 1975, and 1976.