Cape boys earn big win at Smyrna 74-51

The Cape Henlopen boys’ basketball team, known for its electric offense, came into a showdown against Smyrna Jan. 12. Through their first nine games, the Vikings had averaged 69 points per night on 46 percent field-goal shooting, and eclipsed the 75-point mark five times. Up against a hot-shooting Eagles squad averaging 72 points per game and boasting a pair of first-team all-staters, it appeared that Cape would need to scare the century mark to win this one.

As it turns out, the Vikings can play some defense, too.

Cape unleashed a suffocating man-to-man scheme to lock down Smyrna from the opening tap, dismantling the Eagles in their own building for a 74-51 triumph.

“Defense is what we do,” said Cape head coach Steve Re, whose team held Smyrna to 33 percent shooting and snapped the Eagles’ 25-game win streak against in-state competition. “The foundation we’ve laid in this program over the past several years is to defend, help each other on that end of the court, and play as hard as you can. You get stops and you score and you play as a unit and you move as one. We were on it tonight for all four quarters…It was a well-earned victory. I told the guys to enjoy the heck out of this win, because that was awesome.”

Senior forward Randy Rickards came up huge in the Vikings’ biggest test of the season, scoring a game-high 21 points, grabbing 10 rebounds, and blocking three shots to help Cape avenge a season-opening 64-55 loss to the Eagles.

“In my four years, we’ve only beaten [Smyrna] twice,” said the 6-foot-5 Rickards, who also handed out four assists. “This was amazing. Doing it here, at their home court, feels pretty good.”

The Vikings surrendered a combined 53 points and 10 three-pointers to Smyrna guards Caleb Matthews and Greg Bloodsworth in the teams’ Dec. 1 meeting, but Cape’s army of athletic guards never gave them room to breathe in this one. Hounded possession after possession by cat-quick Vikings Skylar Johnson, Sh’Kai Chandler, Izaiah Dadzie, and Kris Rushin, Matthews finished with a season-low 11 points on 3-for-10 shooting, and Bloodsworth bricked seven of his first eight shots on the way to 13 points.

Senior forward Ian Robertson tallied 17 points, six boards, and five assists for Cape, which improved to 8-2 overall and moved into a tie with Smyrna atop the Henlopen North at 5-1. He applauded his teammates’ defensive effort.

“Our guards are young and getting more and more comfortable every game. We rotated people in and out so we always had fresh legs and could keep pressure on their guards the whole game,” he said.

Robertson said stopping Matthews, hands-down the state’s deadliest shooter, was the key to stopping Smyrna.

“We face-guarded [Matthews] the whole time to make him work for his shots and get him tired. He had to go get his shots because we weren’t gonna give them to him. He’s gonna put up shots no matter what we do, so we want those shots to be bad shots.”

 The Vikings made 30 of their 57 field goals (53 percent), knocking down more than half of their shots for the third straight game. Even more impressive, they amassed 19 assists on the night, one shy of a season high.

Junior forward Jaymeir Garnett led Smyrna with 17 points and 12 rebounds.

Cape returns to the hardwood Tuesday, Jan. 16, when the Vikings travel to Delcastle for a 5:30 p.m. tip.