Sports celebrations sometimes last a little too long
Every step you take, I’ll be watching you.” - Sting
Crowd control - Cape’s Todd Keen scored the go-ahead goal with two minutes left against visiting Caesar Rodney and was mobbed behind the net by his teammates. A lacrosse official with the ESPN Sports Package on his Direct TV and The Hopper banged the Vikings for an excessive celebration, a 60-second, man down, nonreleasable penalty. The Riders won the game with 12 seconds left in overtime and celebrated excessively for 20 minutes, which was 15 minutes too long. The Riders, holding the lead in points as the top seed in the upcoming state tournament, went down to Delmar the next day, Wednesday, May 8, and in a bit of the Karma Chameleon were rocked like Boy George - “I don’t really want to hurt you, I just want to make you cry” - as the Wildcats pulled off a stunning 5-4 upset. And the tournaments are not even here yet.
The longest day - In less than 24 hours, three different Cape sports teams playing at home lost by one point as boys' lacrosse went down 10-9 to Caesar Rodney in overtime in the conference championship game, the girls' soccer team fell to Sussex Tech 1-0 and the baseball team lost a 5-4 game to Sussex Central that would have clinched the Northern Division of the Henlopen Conference and an automatic berth in the postseason. That’s a big ouch for sure, but the darkest hour is just before dawn, so there's still time to crank up the noise like that neighbor with a chain saw who starts cutting at 7 a.m - or is that just my neighborhood?
Gender bender - Do students and athletes react the same to teachers and coaches regardless of gender? How about race and ethnic background of the coach - does that make a difference? What about age? What about language? How about no language, like a deaf coach, or straight-up slang or improper butchered grammar - do they make any difference? Let me say with absolute certainty that they might. What I am driving at, since I can’t even program a Tom Tom, is if you’re the teacher/coach/leader, try to sound like it. Grand Mom Rose: “Never dumb it down, clown, and never let others do it to you.” "Did you just call me a clown, Grand Mom? Honk once if the answer is yes.”
Who knew? - I walked onto the Cape track on the far side of a Senior Day ceremony Monday afternoon, but I had no idea what was up as I’m not on any Senior Day mailing list. I love the track kids because that is my sport - and you thought it was girls' lacrosse. I snapped a shot of Jeremiah Cohen with his Aunt Sheldean, a former student of mine. Four senior girls, shown in photo (l-r) consented to have a picture snapped: Julie Kyritsis, Tiana Evans, Kadijah Doughty and Aaliyah Reese. The Henlopen Conference is this Friday, not Saturday, at Dover High School. Final running events begin at 5 p.m. Who knew?
Tennis, anyone? - The Henlopen Conference Boys' and Girls' Tennis Tournament will be contested at Sea Colony Friday and Saturday, May 10 and 11. The championship round will be Saturday, May 11, beginning at 10 a.m. The Cape boys' team finished the regular season 9-6. The lineup will be Ryan Thornburg at first singles, Andrew Hynes second singles and Evan Lesko third singles. Anastasios Kotanides and Brian Bahtiarian are first doubles while Amit Nainani and Luke DiGuglielmo are second doubles. Man, those are some tough names to spell. The Cape girls' team finished the regular season with a record of 8-5. Just not sure of the lineup going into the weekend so I will duck to avoid trouble. Caesar Rodney is a prohibitive favorite to win both team titles.
Snippets - Shemik Thompson, a Cape and Central Connecticut State graduate who coached the Cape freshman basketball team last winter, has been substituting in the Cape middle schools. Ellis Gaulden, a graduate of the University of Connecticut where he was two-time Big East high jump champion at 7-feet-1-inch, is a paraprofessional who has coached jumpers at Cape the last two seasons. Cape needs to get these guys certified, maybe start with taking the Praxis test? "Praxis?" "Yeah, man, we talking Praxis!” Seriously, don’t even think of going to Pittsburgh on some minority recruitment trip; that’s how Cape lost J.D. Maull, last year's Delaware Football Coach of the Year. Cape was in Pittsburgh while J.D. was student teaching in the Cape gym in 2002. In the last three years at Saint Georges with locals Ronnie Burton and Kai Maull on his staff, he led the Hawks to a 26-4 record with two state tournament appearances. Forget two tickets to Pittsburgh; recruit from home. Go on now, git!
