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	Photo by Travis Pratt Linganore's Rob Havenstein, center, goes for a block during the team's season-opening practice on Saturday.

"It's like Christmas day in New Market ," Lancers coach Rick Conner declared -- and he wasn't referring to the batch of Christmas cookies that were delivered to the team by a thoughtful fan.

Instead, Conner was talking about the first day public school athletic teams were permitted to practice in Maryland.

It even felt like the first day of football practice, a potent blend of heat and humidity that seemed right out of the playbook of a diabolical coach.

"It was fun," Linganore star running back Zach Zwinak said, sweat dripping off his nose at the end of the workout. "It was a chance to see what we've got and see where we need to go."

At Urbana , first-year head coach Joe Conner had the good sense to move the second practice of the day to 6 p.m. to take some of the punch out of the conditions.

"I knew this was going to happen," Conner said. "We've had a pretty mild summer so far and I knew the first day of practice (the heat) would be here."

And two workouts weren't even a full day's work at Catoctin, where coach Doug Williams put his players through three two-and-a-half hour sessions.

"We've been making them get water every 15 minutes," Williams said. "I don't care what kind of shape you are in, you put full pads on for the first time in conditions like these and it is going to take some getting used to. We aren't trying to put these kids through killer practices."

And so began what is expected to be a hotly contested football season in Frederick County. Expectations are very high across the board.

At Catoctin, 13 of 22 starters return from a team that reached the Class 1A state semifinals last season.

Tuscarora reached the playoffs for the first time last season and is looking to build on that success under new coach Dean Swink.

"I would like to prove that last year wasn't a fluke with just two good players. Now they're gone and we go back to being mediocre," Swink said. "These kids have worked way too hard to have that happen."

Even though expectations are high as always at Urbana , Conner admitted this first day of practice had a different feeling for him. Instead of just being focused on coordinating the defense, Conner now had the broader responsibilities of a head coach, which included making sure all of his players had their chin straps.

At Maryland School for the Deaf, the Orioles are looking to win their seventh consecutive National Deaf Prep Championship and eighth in the last nine seasons.

St. John's-Catholic Prep is hoping to carry the success from last season's 9-2 campaign into this season. Thomas Johnson and Middletown are looking to extend their string of playoff appearances, while Brunswick , Frederick and Walkersville are hoping to bounce back from difficult seasons.

But expectations are, perhaps, the highest at Linganore . Few teams demand more of itself than the Lancers, who returns 14 starters from a squad that took an undefeated record into the Class 4A state championship game last season.

A lot is also expected of individuals like Zwinak and massive left tackle Rob Havenstein, who are big time college recruits and have no problems attracting attention.

Zwinak has grown an inch over the summer and put on five to 10 pounds of muscle, putting him at 6-foot-3 and about 245 pounds. He has narrowed his college choices to Virginia Tech and Penn State.

Havenstein, meanwhile, has whittled his college choice down to about four schools. He appeared to be around his listed size of 6-7, 333.

Both players try to stay out of all the hype that consistently swirls around them.

"If you let it overwhelm you, it will," Havenstein said. "When we are here, we are focused on playing football for Linganore . We are not worried about colleges or anything else."

With a veteran roster that includes 30 seniors, Linganore 's first day of practice ran fairly crisply. Conner said the team installed a lot of what it is looking to run.

The Lancers don't care to talk about their expectations publicly, instead letting their work ethic over the summer and performance on the field speak for itself.

"This is a pretty level-headed group," Conner said. "I don't think we're going to be looking past anyone or getting too far ahead of ourselves."