Get the shot and the story will follow

Got it! But missed it! Fleet-footed Alia Marshall scored her 100th career lacrosse goal on the final play of the game May 7 in a 20-6 home win over St. Andrew’s. “Who knew?” as they say in Brooklyn. The cosmic connection? The goal was scored against goalie Charlotte Oxnam, who personally met Alia after the game, as both athletes will attend Northwestern University next fall. The acceptance rate at Northwestern is 8 percent, so it’s not like you’re running into purple Wildcats at Wawa during Hoagiefest. I’ve captured photos of many milestone goals in field hockey and lacrosse along with 100-career wins in wrestling and 1,000 points scored in basketball. But this is the best photo I never knew I took until it was celebrated two games later during the Ursuline game that I didn’t attend.

Hey Molly Ann - Five thousand photos taken over four days and still no matter how much I’m doing I look like I’m doing nothing. Two days at the Henlopen Conference Track Championships followed by two days of running races, but what was embedded in the middle on Friday morning was the annual Blockhouse Pond walk/run/picnic started by Tommy Coveleski a decade ago. A beautiful morning with music playing. The first song I heard was “Love Train” by the O’Jays followed by “Love Shack” by the B-52s. I go for candid closeups. My photo album is posted on Facebook before the Knights of Columbus boiled dogs see mustard. My favorite photo of the 5,000 was of 4-year-old Molly Ann Jones, who rolled onto the green grass after self-powering a lap around the pond. She was just perfect, from her backward pink hat to her New Balance sneakers with colorful laces. Molly Ann wore a yellow wristband that read “Surfgimp Foundation.” She recently received a grant. The prophet Jay Liesner’s surfing spirit captured in a 4-year-old who will be riding waves in a wetsuit with Team Surfgimp before you can say “Surf’s up!”

Too cool for school - Two things you won’t find over two days of conference and state track championships are fat-mouth fans that get your attention by virtue of their obnoxiousness, and showboating athletes who don’t respect their opponents. There are no off-duty police and adults in yellow security jackets. The athletes and coaches take care of themselves. It is just totally uncool to break bad at a track meet.  

Christian Yelich - The 2018 National League MVP Christian Yelich of the Milwaukee Brewers is 6-foot-3, 195 pounds. The Brewers are in Philly to start the week. Yelich’s paternal grandfather is Serbian while his maternal grandfather is Japanese. You don’t have to be Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel to know genetic diversity is best, just more good stuff to select from when mapping a new person. I used to tell my students, “If all your great-grandparents were alive at this moment, you would have eight now. Write down their names on the index card provided and pass it in.” The first and many times also the last lesson learned was, “We have no idea who we are, so don’t worry about who anyone is.”

Deep Sixers - I just never bought into the 76ers’ “Trust the Process,” and so I did the Comcast press letter C for digital sports updates Sunday night to track Game 7 while I watched Notre Dame men’s lacrosse beat Johns Hopkins in the NCAA tournament. Ten years ago, I read a 700-page book on the NBA, all about its history and evolution of the game. And by the way, if you believe in evolution, you must believe it is ongoing. The book concluded that the secret to championship success in the NBA is great chemistry beyond all else, and I think that holds true for all teams at all levels of sports.

Snippets - Cape’s Luke D’Ambrogi, a lacrosse team captain and leading assist maker on the team, is heading to Catholic University next year to play lacrosse and pursue his dream of being an athletic director. Luke’s great-uncle is Gene Corrigan, who was former AD at Notre Dame and commissioner of the ACC. His uncle Boo Corrigan was AD at Army and is newly named AD at North Carolina State. His uncle Kevin is the head men’s lacrosse coach at Notre Dame. Think of the computer Hal from the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” or “The Matrix”  ... the DIAA computer is getting ready to seed the field for the postseason state tournaments. Just go through the door marked Exit 7 Great Adventure. Sussex Tech beat Cape in baseball last week 3-2, but the game was later forfeited to Cape 1-0 because of a weekly pitch count violation. On game day somebody wins, that’s all I know; most fans pay no attention to forfeits. Go on now, git!