Cape girls let clock run out, lose to Saint Elizabeth 62-16

The scoreboard showed Cape basketball girls trailing 65-16 to visiting Saint Elizabeth Dec. 14 with just under a minute left to play with possession of the basketball. Coach Lamont Hazzard instructed sophomore Alison Palmer to just hold the ball out near midcourt. Saint Elizabeth’s Vikings were up by 49 points. They hung back and watched the clock run out. The final horn sounded, and the Cape crowd was not happy.

“I’m glad you asked that question,” Hazzard smiled in response to, “What was up with holding the ball?”

“We played two games in three days, lost at Milford by 25; we have three starters out sitting on the bench with injuries and with our luck, we would have missed that shot, and they would have scored four points before that 30 seconds would have run out," Hazzard said. And as it turned out, the scoreboard was wrong and the final was 62-16, coming on the heels of a 69-44 loss at Milford.

The 16 points isn’t going to beat many schools unless you’re playing Delmar, Indian River, Laurel or Saint Andrew's, none of which cracked 20 in their last outings.

“We’ll be back,” Hazzard said. “We have athletic JV players and some good eighth-graders. In the meantime, we have to fight through it.”

Frank Aiello returned to the coaching bench for Saint Elizabeth for a one-year stint and will then pass the program on to the younger guys.

Aiello retired from Saint E in 2000, went to Goldey-Beacom College and started a women’s basketball program then was AD at Wilmington College from 2003 to 2011. “I spent 30 years teaching and coaching at St. E, 16 years as women’s basketball coach, and won three state championships,” he said.

The win over Cape was the first game of the season for St. E’s Vikings. “I’m just having fun," Aiello said.

Cape was led in scoring by Taylor Hardy, who had 7 points.

In the Dec. 12 loss at Milford, the Vikings were paced by Alyssa Miller with 13, Madison MacElrevey with 10 and Alison Palmer with 9.

The Bucs were paced by Myleiris Vazquez with 27, Xitlali Roman with 15 and Diamond Turner with 11.