By Mike Loveday
ESPNRISE.com

In a game where points appeared to come easily, Linganore's Pat Balderson ran wild over an Arundel team that was looking for its second straight appearance in the Class 4A title game.

Balderson's 247 yards and five touchdowns earns him this week's MDVarsity.com State Player of the Week award.

The 5-foot-8, 175-pound senior averaged over 10 yards per carry as he helped Linganore defeat Arundel 59-34 in the Class 4A state semifinal game at Linganore.

Balderson has rushed for 1,211 yards and 16 touchdowns this season.

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By Mike Loveday

Arundel senior wide receiver, Alec Lemon could have been overlooked on Friday. After all, his quarterback set the Maryland state record for most touchdown passes in a season, but Lemon had a large hand in that performance.

Lemon made nine catches for 181 yards and two touchdowns in Arundel's 49-15 win over North County. He also returned two kicks for 107 yards and a touchdown in the game. His performance earns the senior this week's MDVarsity.com State Player of the Week honors.

Lemon started Arundel's scoring when he took the opening kickoff 85-yards for a touchdown.  He added a 42-yard reception to put the Wildcats up 21-7 and finished his scoring with a 22-yard reception with 33 seconds left in the third quarter.

The senior has been on the receiving end of 21 of quarterback Billy Cosh's touchdowns this year. Lemon is six touchdowns shy of tying Max Morris' record of 27 touchdown receptions in a season. Morris set the record in 2004 while at St. John's at Prospect Hall.

On the season, Lemon has 82 receptions for 1,263 yards and is averaging 114 yards per game.

Arundel hosts Severna Park in the Class 4A East region final on Friday at 7 p.m.

By Mike Loveday

Accounting for 64 percent of your team's total points in a game is impressive. When you do it when your season is on the line it is even more impressive.

For that reason Cambridge-South Dorchester's Jeremiah Howe has earned this week's MDVarsity.com's State Player of the Week honor.

The 5-foot-9, 168-pound Howe scored six touchdowns in Cambridge-SD's 56-7 win over Easton. The win clinched the No. 3 seed in Class 1A East for Cambridge-SD.

Howe scored two touchdowns rushing, two on kickoff returns, one receiving and one on an interception in the win.

Howe has been a touchdown waiting to happen this season. The senior athlete has 32 total touchdowns this year, which leads the state, and he has done it in a variety of ways.

The senior has 665 yards and 12 touchdowns receiving and 532 rushing yards with 10 touchdowns for the bulk of his scores. His remaing touchdowns have come on kickoff returns (four), on punt returns (three) and one each at quarterback, an interception and a fumble recovery.

Howe has received light recruting interest according to his head coach, Jake Coleman. Temple has asked Howe to attend as a prefered walk-on, but have not extended an offcial offer.

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By Mike Loveday

Queen Anne's County senior running back Dyrell Wilson led the state in rushing in week eight with 267 yards. Combined with his four-touchdown performance, that is enough to earn Wilson MDVarsity.com State Player of the Week honors.

Wilson saved his best performance for one of his team's biggest games. At the time Queen Anne's was 7-0 while Parkside was 6-1. With Queen Anne's victory it solidified them as the No. 1 seed in 2A East and Wilson's 267 yards are a career high for the senior.

On the season Wilson has rushed for 1,247 yards with 19 touchdowns while averaging over 10 yards per carry.

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By Mike Loveday

When you set a new state record it warrants notification. Wootton's Mike Mooney set a new Maryland public school state record for most passing yards in a game, helping lead his team to victory.

For that reason, Mooney is this weeks' MDVarsity.com State Player of the Week.

Mooney threw for 451 yards breaking the old record of 448 yards, set by Oakland Mills Justin Sottilaire in 2007 against Marriott's Ridge.

Mooney completed 26-of-43 passes with three touchdowns as Wootton defeated Blair 36-7.

The overall Maryland state record for most passing yards in a game is held by former St. John's at Prospect Hall quarterback Keith Ricca. Ricca threw for 515 yards against Riverdale Baptist in 2003.

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By Mike Loveday

When the playoffs are on the line the playmakers start to make plays and that is exactly what Patuxent's Justin Ford did last week as he helped lead his team to a 49-21 victory over La Plata.

Ford's 303 total yard performance has earned him this week's MDVarsity.com Player of the Week award.

The senior had 176 receiving yards and an additional 123 yards on kick returns. He added in 10 rushing yards as he helped his sixth place Patuxent team earns points over the 3A La Plata squad.

With the win, Patuxent moved into fifth place in the 2A South behind River Hill, North Point and Douglass-PG.

Make sure to leave your comment below and let us know how we're doing. To submit an athlete for Player of the Week e-mail us at MDVTop@gmail.com each week with that athletes statistics for that week's game along with season information. Be sure to leave contact information in the e-mail so we can verify all information.

By Mike Loveday

It's not every week that a state record falls. It is for that reason, plus the fact that he did it in a big rivalry game that Dunbar's Tavon Austin is this week's MDVarsity.com State Player of the Week.

Austin rushed for 125 yards and a touchdown in Dunbar's 30-18 victory over rival City College. With his 125 yards, Austin not only became Maryland's all-time rushing leader, but became the first high school player to surpass the 6,000 yard mark for his career.

Austin breaks the rushing record, one year after breaking Maryland's all-time touchdown record. The senior athlete now has over 100 career touchdowns and 6,002 yards for his career.

For more on Tavon and the rushing record read Austin breaks the rushing record on MDVarsity.com

By Mike Loveday

Perry Hall's Dave Stinebaugh did everything he could to help lead his team to a 17-14 overtime victory over No. 20 Hereford Friday night. His performance on offense, defense and special teams earns him this week's MDVarsity.com State Player of the Week award.

The Maryland commit recorded 17 tackles, caught five passes for 39 yards and a touchdown in the Gators win over the Bulls.

There was some confusion over Stinebaugh's touchdown reception and has not been reported in some box scores. According to head coach Keith Robinson, Stinebaugh caught the pass from quarterback Davonta Farrell and the officials signaled touchdown. The ball got loose and several players jumped on the ball and the officials again ruled a touchdown.

The receiving touchdown stands because a fumble cannot occur once the offensive team scores a touchdown.

Stinebaugh was a lock for player of the week this week even without the touchdown because of his 17-tackle performance.

By Mike Loveday

There were several top performances this week, but Michael Campanaro's seven touchdown performance stands out and earns the Player of the Week award.

The senior performed on both offense and special teams - rushing for 130 yards and four touchdowns and returning three punts for TD's.

The seven touchdown performance is one shy of the state record for scores in a game. Two players scored eight touchdowns in a game earlier this decade.

Loch Raven's Quentin Burley scored eight against Chesapeake - BC in 2003 and Eastern Tech's Dietrich Wright scored eight against Towson in 2003.

Campanaro's TD mark helped River Hill to a 54-8 victory over Oakland Mills and improves the Hawks record to 2-0.

For the season Campanaro has 255 rushing yards and 10 total touchdowns.

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	Mike Loveday/ESPNRise
	Cosh is MDVarsity.com's Player of the Week.

In his first varsity start, Arundel's Billy Cosh stepped up and led the Wildcats to county rival Broadneck. For his performance, Cosh has been named MDVarsity.com's Player of the Week.

Cosh threw for 169 yards and three touchdowns, leading Arundel to a 28-13 victory over Broadneck.

Cosh is taking over the quarterback reigns from the graduated Nick Elko who threw for over 3,000 yards and accounted for 43 touchdowns last season.

Arundel reached the Class 4A state title game last season and Elko was named to the 2007 Consensus All-state team.