Burton and Currie light up Lax World at Bethany College

Hometown hat trickers - The Bison of Bethany College lacrosse are 1-1 this early season, having beaten Franciscan 19-6, then lost to Westminster 16-7. Aarin “Big Cat” Burton scored six goals with two assists in the win over Franciscan, while his hometown running mate Andre Currie had a goal and an assist. In the loss to Westminster, Currie had three goals and an assist, while Burton had a goal and an assist. Both athletes are straight outta Cape and are playing attack. Fellow Cape grad Chloe Schaeffer had three goals and an assist for the Mercer University Bears in a 14-11 loss to Winthrop. 

Discombobulation - A case of the yips in sports is a recognized real thing. You can read about it on the Mayo Clinic website, assuming your twitching fingers can hit the right keys. The yips may show up for only one game or round of golf, or they may settle in for a season, like a lacrosse player who can’t hit a wide-open net, or a basketball player stuck between air balls and bricks, or a baseball infielder who can’t make the throw to first base. That’s why too much focus on outcomes can produce deleterious results. “Bow wow wow yippie yo yippie yay” - George Clinton. The yips were in the Big House Friday night, as the Cape girls’ basketball team went colder than a frozen Yeti in the last 10 minutes of a loss to Woodbridge, being outscored 24-11. The price of playing sports is the unwanted mule kick to the skull that happens to players and coaches. Those slow-walking mules will be on you like Borax on greasy forearms.   

Cancel Culture - This snuck up on me like Poppy on Grandma Rose, but perhaps Mr. Potato Head and Dr. Seuss needed to go down. My mind goes back to posting “cut lists” inside high schools for sports teams or tryouts for the play, and having the word “cut” stamped on the brim of your self-esteem fedora. You can publish a made list, although I’d advise the personal contact. Text is also a bad idea. 

Great White Hope - I went into a three-day wrestling tournament not at all anxious. I wasn’t thinking that Cape might win the Division I state title and its first wrestling state championship in school history. I honestly didn't think about it, because Sallies was the odds-on favorite. That, and Caesar Rodney and Smyrna beat Cape during dual-meet season; then consider talented Milford and Sussex Central and you realize just too many things had to go right. When using the big-meet formula in wrestling, swimming and track, a team score is totally different than head-to-head matches and meets. Here are point producers for Cape: Luke Bender 31, Jackson Handlin 27, C.J. Fritchman 25, Mikey Frederick 23.5, Dalton Deevey 21, Lucas Ruppert 20, Carson Kammerer 19.5, Alex Taylor 16, Mike Elphick 14, Bryan Garcia 14, Josh Wright 11, Grant Barczak 6. Team championships were decided at the individual wrestling tournament from 1957 through 1992. Steve Bastianelli, now the athletic director at Sussex Academy, won that state title five times when he coached at Saint Mark’s. Jack Holloway, who now lives in Lewes, won the title three times while coaching at William Penn. Pete Basile won it three times as Caesar Rodney’s head coach. Jackson Basile, Pete’s grandson, runs cross country at Sussex Academy. I just needed to throw that in there.  

Outsiders - You can’t judge the effectiveness of the relationship between coaches and athletes as an outsider. The fact an outsider doesn't like a coach or program and how they roll on game day tells you nothing. I look at how the coach relates to the athlete during competition, and more importantly, how that athlete looks back at the coach. My coach buddy George Glenn always said, “There are a lot of ways to skin a cat. The bottom line is: Can you get the job done?” “Not me, coach, homey ain’t skinning no cat.”

Snippets - The Big Ten Network, which operated in conjunction with Fox Sports, earned close to a billion dollars per year in revenue. The future is online and that is now happening in high school sports. I wonder why a conference of stellar academic schools chooses Dr. Pepper as a major sponsor. We are talking soda, man. Any of it is just not good for you, but I like it. Go on now, git!