Wahoowa – Young and Rambo are excelling at Virginia

Young and relentless - “Dateline Richmond, Va. The No. 20 Virginia men’s track and field team closed competition at the Fred Hardy Invitational on Saturday (March 31) at the Fred Hardy Track. Sophomore Sam Young (Lewes, Del.) topped the pole vault with a mark of 5.20 meters (17-feet-3/4-inches). His performance tied the facility and meet record, in addition to tying as the second-best pole vaulting mark in University of Virginia history.” The above information appeared on the UVA website March 31. Sam's strength is a fearless, focused approach to an event that would scare the hell out of most people. His relaxed style is to plant and drive, then go upside down perpendicular to the track, waiting for the fiberglass pole to unbend to thrust him up and over as he turns and gently throws the pole away from the cross bar. Sam could stand in the middle of a CrossFit warehouse and no one would notice that the “lanky guy” is the best athlete in the barn who can also hurdle and run the 800 meters. Sam transferred to UVA from Delaware, which mysteriously dropped the men’s track program after 100 years. 

Done is done - A head-scratching image fell from my photobucket among the 1,300 pictures I took at Saturday morning’s Bunny Palooza 10K and 5K on the boardwalk in Bethany Beach. Daisey Calhoun, 70, and Larry Merrifield, 57, crossed together in 26:09 for the 5K. Merrifield looks like a Marine, while Calhoun, who was carrying a walking stick, looks like she could drop him like a bad habit. There was no official digital time for Daisey. I think maybe she had another lap to go, but when an official tried to block her path, she said something about being a tourist and told him, “Get out of my way.” The story could only get better if Daisey took someone else’s bunny. 

Rambo on the roster - Sarah Rambo was Cape’s salutatorian for the class of 2017, president of the Honor Society, a starter on Cape’s state championship lacrosse team and a swimmer on a state championship relay team. Sarah was Cape’s 2017 Female Athlete of the Year, and she did it all with a smile on her face after coming off ACL surgery as a junior. Sarah is a freshman at the University of Virginia, where she went out for the rowing team. She looks the part at 6 feet, long arms, no body fat and pretty ripped. And through hard work and hanging in, she has made the roster. Sarah may only have one oar in the water, but she has two hands on it, rowing in one of the boats called “eights.” Sarah was in the stroke position, closest to the stern, the athlete who sets the stroke rate, as the UVA 4V8 team defeated Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State in a regatta on the Griggs Reservoir in Columbus, Ohio, March 31. The Virginia team won the overall competition.

Pennsylvania Navy - Locals joke: “They come down here for the weekend with a $5 bill and an extra pair of underwear, and don’t change either one of them.” I was researching the sport of rowing and discovered there’s an association of rowing clubs along the Schuylkill River known as the Schuylkill Navy; you know, Boathouse Row, so put that in the wet willy livewell of your Bayliner, right next to your minnow bucket. By the way, the Pennsylvania Navy are all from the 717, not the 215, just so we can keep our jokes straight.

Snippets - Cape baseball plays at Middletown Wednesday, April 4, at 2:30 p.m. Both teams are unbeaten at 3-0. The Cavaliers were 14-4 last year, including a 9-0 loss at Cape. Boys’ lacrosse will host Dover Wednesday, April 4, at Legends Stadium. Wednesday weather calls for 68 degrees with 80 percent chance of thunderstorms, but Thursday looks better. Spring sports are all about the reschedule and finding bus drivers. There are some sports days when Cape has 10 buses going to games. Phillies rookie Manager Gabe Kapler will be gone halfway to the All Star game, that is my read on the subject. The job is about managing people, not following analytics. The Phillies should bring in Eagles coach Doug Pederson for consultation and give Kapler a bit of the 411. Go on now, git!