Athletes are ready to bust loose

Wrestling Immersion Program - The only way to learn the language of a championship state wrestling tournament, to accurately and authentically capture the quest to be the best, is to experience it over two days, round by round, across multiple mats. Cape Henlopen is the venue with preliminary bouts beginning at 4 p.m., Friday, Feb. 27. A total of 56 wrestlers across 14 weight classes will emerge from the quarterfinals to advance to the semifinal round Saturday morning. By early afternoon, just 28 of 168 who weighed in Friday will be alive for a state title. The remaining 140 go to the wrestlebacks with a mission is to make the top eight and reach the podium.

Bonus points - Athletes know their own personal history. I call it walking-around knowledge that builds confidence. What's cool is when someone who ain't you also remembers. At the Henlopen Conference Championships last weekend, I sneaked a sideways photo of Rony Perez, who closed out Cape's 2022 33-31 semifinal win over Smyrna in the state duals by losing a decision to Wyatt Miller 8-4. Miller had pinned Perez earlier in the season, but Rony would just not give it up. Cape went on to win the state dual meet title thanks to Perez giving up just three points for a decision instead of six for a pin. I talked to coaches Garrett Smith and Shane Jensen. I said, "When I see Rony ..." But before I could tell the rest of the story, they ran it back on me because they were there too. Rony is just the greatest young man – take my word for it. And the word of Garrett and Shane and the extended Cape wrestling family who know him well.

Triple A - I call them athletic administrative assistants, but most high school sports teams list them on the roster as managers. I’m a go-to-the-manage-first type of sports reporter because they are mostly smart and efficient and have that caregiver’s personality. Otherwise, who needs a manager that doesn’t want to be bothered? Wrestling managers Natalie Longo and Emmilyn Swope are a mobile podcast, sitting shoulder to shoulder next to the mat. I sometimes give Emmi my phone and say “capture the podium photos because I ain’t messing with the horizontal holders of stored memories and the family crowd of cellphone photographers.” I remember when field hockey 2015 had the WMD (weapons of mass destruction) managers in Adam Webster, Ryan Meade and Izaiah Dadzie.  

Numbers mean nothing - Statistics show patterns. Numbers etched in scorebooks don’t lie, but the best predictor of sports outcomes is to watch what is happening in the game being played in front of you. Cape girls’ basketball won the first state championship contested in Delaware in 1973. The next trip to the final game was 2011. The Vikings lost to Sanford 47-41 at the Bob Carpenter Center. The storyline was that it took 38 years to get back. The Cape community and mobile caravan of fans were jazzed. The Cape boys’ basketball team won back-to-back titles in 1975 and 1976. The boys lost in the finals in 1979 68-65 to Concord and 1980 66-65 to Indian River. Cape's most recent trip to the finals was 1996, losing to Howard in overtime 67-63. “Seems like yesterday but it was long ago; young and strong and running against the wind.” - Bob Seger. 

Behind the mask - Playing basketball behind a mask was weird to watch in 2020, but not as strange as the sudden sadness slammed in the face of a Cape girls’ basketball team heading to the semifinals at the Bob Carpenter Center to play Sanford. The Cape team, under coach Pat Woods, was 19-4 behind seniors Dania Cannon, Ryleigh Elliott, Abby Hearn and Carlin Quinn. Super sophomores on that team were Ella Rishko, Mehkia Applewhite and Morgan Mahoney. The semifinal game was switched to Cape – it’s unheard of to play a semifinal in your own gym. I remember Pat Woods telling me how disappointed the girls were to not be playing at “The Bob.”  And then the tournament was just canceled. The journey was over. “The hardest thing I ever had to do was tell the team the season was over,” Woods said. Note: Oddly enough, the 2020 wrestling state championship meet was contested later at Cape, where Andre Currie captured a state title at 170 pounds. That spring, all sports were canceled. 

Instinct eaters - Last week, I suggested a T-shirt that said “I’d rather be fat than be a champion.” We are all animals and the instinct in a blizzard is to fatten up while you still can, don’t even try to understand, then take it easy. On Tuesday, I had post-traumatic storm syndrome when I saw four large doughnuts each different under glass on the corian counter. I decided to kid myself into thinking there was a chance I would not eat them all. I’m glad I don’t have to weigh in for the state wrestling tournament. 

Snippets - Noah Burroughs (Sussex Central) hit a pair of grand slams for eight RBIs, but the University of Delaware baseball team lost to the University of Maryland 15-14. Noah has three homers and 12 RBIs through seven games. Noah is the grandson of local rocker and sheet rocker Michael Daisey and nephew to rock-and-roller songwriter  Derek Daisey. Fill in the rest of the kinship matrix on your own. Go on now, git!