Best and Burton flash highlights on a bitterly brutal night

What UPS man - Freshman Gabe Best has been hearing his own drummer since arriving at Cape from Mariner. He ran cross country and winter track, where he was on the conference championship-winning 4-by-800 relay. Gabe is now playing attack for the varsity lacrosse team. Gabe has six goals through four games this season, and he has that sixth sense most attack guys possess – he can go under, around or over a defender or goalie and make it look easy.

Bull Dodger - Most big and burly football guys are given long poles in lacrosse and asked to play close defense. “Just go beat on some people.” Aarin Burton is different because, although he looks like pulling guard Reggie McKenzie of the Buffalo Bills (1972-82), he has agility, mobility, hostility and stick skills. Wednesday night in the first half against Dover, coach Mark D’Ambrogi called for ISO up top, and everyone cleared the path for Aarin. Burton went Queen Anne’s Railroad, rumbled down the track and buried a crank shot. He then sprinted to the corner toward downtown Lewes to celebrate. I watched and thought, “There went Charlie Gibbs, his great-grandfather,” because the circle of life game is always in play.       

Casey - My late maternal grandfather Franklin Krupp was cantankerous and unpleasant. He spent hours at Philadelphia Cricket Club playing table tennis, an entire second floor, a “ping pong ballroom,” dedicated with a hundred tables. We called him Casey because of his resemblance to the Yankees and Mets manager, the legendary Casey Stengel. Casey Krupp was a nationally ranked age-group player, long before Senior Olympics and pickleball tournaments, will somebody please slap me? Casey once beat me three straight games in the Cape Cod garage – before assisted living – we owned him the last few years of his life, and he wore everybody out. He was 83, played me straight up while wearing pajamas and a giant green sweater. He had Parkinson’s and a bad attitude. He cursed at me if I took too long to extract the ball from the debris field inside the garage. All this leads to a great Casey Stengel quote I saw applied to new Phillies manager Gabe Kaplar, who has been using analytics to jump off to a 1-4 start. Stengel said, “A manager’s job is to keep the four guys that hate you from talking to the five guys that haven't made their mind up yet.” He also said of his 1962 Mets, “Can’t anybody here play this game?” We have been steadily losing colorful characters from managers to grandfathers. Say it ain’t so, but you would be wrong.

Snippets - Nathan Quillen, Sussex Tech lacrosse senior, has 153 career goals and is set to break the school record held by Jason Whaley, who broke the record of David Fluharty. Quillen is also on pace for 300 career points, that’s goals and assists combined. Eddy Shoop had a goal in the Florida Gators’ 15-3 win over visiting Temple. Taylor Gooch and Lizzie Frederick saw the field for Temple, making it three Cape girls in the same Division I game played a long way from home. Kat Judge, who will graduate from Winthrop this spring, has been accepted to the advanced standing at the University of Penn graduate school. Kat will be starting in July working on her master’s degree in social work. The Donte DiVincenzo show in the National Championship was electric. The condensed highlights are worth watching over and over. And in Philly, Donte is the Nick Foles of college basketball. You will never see a more unlikely championship double with heroes coming off the bench. Philly needs a statue park of champions, and start with those two guys. Villanova coach Jay Wright, from Council Rock High and Bucknell, is the guy he appears to be, a truly nice person who should stay away from the NBA, and so should Donte. College basketball is the best and so is actually going to classes; it’s not worth giving that up for glorified pickup games. Cape girls’ lacrosse will face the toughest team on their schedule this Saturday, hosting Queen Anne’s County. Cape is 1-4 versus Queen Anne’s over the last five years. Weather for Saturday sports activities is looking dreary; the inhospitable forecast is rain/snow and winds from the north at 15. Who am I, “The Ancient Mariner?” The Oy Vey 5K is set for Sunday morning at Seaside Jewish Community Center on Holland Glade Road. There will be plenty of kugel to nosh and a dog-friendly mile, and an unfriendly-dog 10-miler or until he tracks you down. Ready, set, go on now, git!