Drumstick Deacon Dave is not a Butterball turkey
Soccer power - The Cape soccer team has opened the season with three straight victories, outscoring Smyrna, Woodbridge and Laurel by a combined score of 19-2.
On Sept. 15, the Vikings tilted the field at Laurel with a crooked number, scoring five goals in each half for a 10-0 victory. David Cespedes scored five goals and had two assists. Billy Swontek had two goals and an assist, while single goals were scored by Chris Serrano, Will Hastings and Miguel Sanchez. Defender Sam McMillon had a pair of assists. Griffin Kammerer and Eric Lynch shared the shutout in goal.
Cape will host the Dover Senators at 4 p.m, Tuesday, Sept. 20. Dover is 2-0, having beaten Delmar and Polytech. The team will be guided by assistant coach Terry Lindenmuth, a veteran of 31 years' teaching and coaching. Lindenmuth is guiding the ship for one more game until head coach Gary Montalto returns from a family reunion in Seattle.
Drumstick Deacon Dave - Dave McDowell, who is a former head football coach at Cape, gave the Vikings three sons - Jimmy, Brent and David - who played Cape football. McDowell also literally adopted Vinnie Vazquez, a player who is now Vinnie McDowell. Dave, a deacon in the Catholic church, joined me, a demon, in the press box during the second half of last Saturday's football game against Cape May. Since last Thanksgiving, Dave has lost 82 pounds and hopes to hit 100 pounds by this Thanksgiving.
He has two artificial hips, and when he talked Thanksgiving and 100 pounds lost, I could only see drumsticks. Dave goes to the YMCA four times a week and breaks the big Philly rule by doing cardio workouts.
Not to be negative, but he is following the eat for your blood type diet. It was hilarious in the press box when Cape booster Bob Bennett delivered a cardboard box with full-bodied Cokes, hot dogs, hamburgers and sugar-twisted doughnuts. I threw a flag on Dave when he took a hamburger out of the roll and I guess he ate it; I know it disappeared.
Dave also runs a weekly group of young people just needing to talk things out called the Lesko Group, named after the late Justin Lesko, an affable young man and former Cape player.
Snippets - Maxine Fluharty scored the winning goal in overtime, her second goal of the game as the University of Maryland field hockey team defeated Boston College at the Newton Sports Complex in Chestnut Hill, Mass., Sept. 16. Maxine also scored a goal in the Terps' 4-1 Sept.18 win at UMass.
Tricia Colucci, a freshman at Catholic University out of Cape Henlopen, has played in all six games for the women's soccer team and has started twice.
The two-time defending state champion Sussex Tech field hockey team lost a 2-1 overtime game at Polytech Sept. 15 with the Ravens outshooting the Panthers 17-2. That's right, Polytech had two shots on goal; both went in and the Panthers won the game.
J.D. Maull, head football coach, and Kai Maull, assistant, are at St. Georges Tech, which is a member of the Blue Hen Conference. The Hawks are 2-0 on the seasons with wins over Woodbridge and Dickinson. This week St. Georges hosts Brandywine, and because of limited seating - no joke - fans are urged to bring their own chairs.
The Delmar Wildcats field hockey team is undefeated at 4-0 and has outscored opponents 25-0. Delmar will host Cape Tuesday, Sept. 27.
Meg Bartley, the 2011 Delaware Lacrosse Athlete of the Year and a member of the three-time Cape state champion lacrosse team, was the wrapped up and delivered walk-on at Virginia Tech and has officially been added to the Hokies team after a fall tryout period. Fall is the lesser season for women's lacrosse; the expanded competitive schedule occurs in the spring. The Hokies were 10-8 in 2011.
Cape's Jacki Coveleski, now a senior, has appeared in seven straight final fours since the spring of her freshman year, including three lacrosse, two field hockey and two basketball. If field hockey makes the semifinals this fall, that will give her eight straight final fours, certainly a record for Cape, and I can't think of another athlete statewide but I'm sure there must be a couple somewhere, someplace at some time.
Eagles wide receiver Jeremy Maclin caught 13 passes for 171 yards and two touchdowns, but he dropped a crucial fourth-quarter, fourth-down pass that hit him between the 1 and the 8 on his throwback jersey.
Congratulations to Ben Bamforth, a Beacon seventh-grader who traveled to Philadelphia's Belmont Plateau Sept. 18 and won the Philadelphia Express Invitational Cross Country Race. Ben ran 3,000 meters in 12:01, winning by 47 seconds. Sixth-grader Logan Shuttleworth was fifth in the female 11-12 race. Stick a fork in me, I'm done! Go on now, git!
