Athletes of the Week Oct. 28
Jackie Cannon
A first-time starter in the midfield, if you know the injector, you have to respect her (hockey corner joke). Jackie, a sophomore, has not surprised her coaches - maybe a little - you just can’t get her off the field. Inside the circle, she is a stalking and deliverer of knockout punches. In a scoreless game at Polytech Oct. 20, Jackie went flat angle far post with 9:34 left to play, as Cape went on to win 2-0. Then versus Milford at Champions Stadium Oct. 25, she scored the game-tying goal with 4:24 left to play, getting Cape to overtime, where Alia Marshall scored the game-winner.
Robbie Neall
Robbie is a thunder runner, sound waves bounce back from the turf when he rumbles. He is “that guy” as a middie in lacrosse. On the football field, the two-way starter never saw a collision he ran away from, except for a live football (Poison!). Neall had two interceptions and a fumble recovery for a touchdown in Cape’s 35-0 win at Caesar Rodney Oct. 21. And to put an exclamation point on his effort, Neall broke loose on the right side - he usually runs left - and broke free into the secondary (they’re not gonna catch him) and went Thunder Road for a 46-yard touchdown. Robbie is a show-up-in-big-games guy, look for him Friday night versus Caravel.
Amanda Sponaugle
The lifted goal in a scoreless game versus visiting undefeated Delmar with 25:36 left to play that led to a 1-0 Cape win will always be remembered by Amanda and her family, teammates and those connected by tradition to Cape hockey. She is a good-sized forward with perfected stick skills. She is deceptively quick and can run a 23-minute 5K. She scored goal No. 2 of the game versus Polytech Oct. 20, as Cape escaped the Panthers 2-0. And a backward glance finds her scoring the winning goal in a 2-1 win at Sussex Tech.
Brian Sponaugle
This Mariner seventh-grader is that “rare breed of runner who’ll pound out six grueling miles at practice and ask, ‘What else you got?’ said his coach Kenny Reidel. Brian, in his first year of competitive cross country, placed 12th in a field of 300 runners at the DAAD Invitational Oct. 26, covering 2.1 miles in 13:10. His time was the second-fastest ever by a Mariner boy on the Browns Branch course in Harrington. Brian has taken the individual crown in all five of the Vikings’ dual meets this year. Sponaugle always rises to high-level competition, as he caught for the Milton Little League 11-12 All-Stars on their journey to the Mid-Atlantic regional in August.
