Getting contents of one cell

I have done so simple queries before with asp.net but I always bind all the results to a datagrid.

Is there a way to just get the results of a query into a int?

lets say I used a query like this:

SELECT MAX(Id) FROM Pubs

this should only return a single int, any idea how to just collect that and store it in an int?

I use the ADO.NET ExecuteScalar method of the OleDbCommand object like this:

Public Function GetPartnerCount(ByVal strEmail As String) As Integer

Dim nPartnerCount As Integer
Dim conTeeTime As New OleDbConnection (ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings("ConnectionString"))
Dim cmdTeeTime As New OleDbCommand("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Partners WHERE Player = '" & strEmail & "'", conTeeTime)

Try
conTeeTime.Open()
nPartnerCount = cmdTeeTime.ExecuteScalar
conTeeTime.Close()
Return nPartnerCount

Catch
Return -1
End Try

End Function

This code works against an Access database, but there's a similar object for MS SQL

Awesome.. just what I was looking for.. thanks so much