Lindsay and Lopez last girls to play goalie for boys’ lacrosse team

Dos porteros - The Beacon boys’ lacrosse team finished the season 8-0-1 and never gave up more than seven goals in any one game. Beacon alternated two goalies: Mikayla Lindsay, an eighth-grader, and Anna Lopez, a seventh-grader. Both girls are quick to the ball, at times making miraculous saves, and are money on clearing passes. Both play Atlantic Lacrosse. Freshman Laci Dixon, the starting goalie on the unbeaten Cape girls’ team, was a two-year starter for the Mariner boys before coming to high school. There will be no more girls guarding the goal for the Beacon or Mariner boys’ teams. Both schools had a girls’ club team this season which will become full-fledged competitive teams next season. Anna Lopez will be an eighth-grade goalie on the girls’ team. The Beacon boys will have to find a boy to protect their house. This all becomes part of Cape sports history, what some call trivia, but ain’t nothing trivial or trifling about wearing a helmet and having crazy middle school boys flinging a lacrosse ball at your head.

Track carnival - The state track championships this Friday and Saturday at the new Dover High school feature boys and girls competing for Division I and Division II state championships. There are 18 events contested including four relays (3,200, 1,600, 800, and 400), two hurdles races (110 high and 300 intermediate), open races (100, 200, 400, 800, 1,600, and 3,200), the jumps (long, triple, high and pole vault), and throws (shot put and discus). The top eight places in each event are scored 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1. Multiple place-winners in a single event can pile up points, while each school is limited to one relay entrant. The New Castle County and Henlopen Conference championships are pushed together then subdivided into two divisions like amoebas that split for the fun of it. The Padua Pandas crushed the competition in the New Castle meet while Smyrna doubled down on the field in the Henlopen Championships. Salesianum and William Penn are the boys’ favorites from upstate, while Caesar Rodney, Dover and Sussex Central are threats from the Henlopen. Coaches can drive themselves to mental exhaustion trying to figure it all out while also getting their athletes on the bus two days in a row.  

Captain Safety - How much is that booster in the window? Cape Henlopen has installed safety netting on the field house end of Legends Stadium just in time for a couple of state tournament lacrosse games. A lacrosse ball traveling 100 mph is dodgeball for keeps whether on the fly or a bounce shot. If you hear, “look out!” it’s already too late. Half the people who hear “duck!” look up for a mallard flyover. The netting system installed by Cape’s custodial staff cost about $7,000. The posts are secured by several 50-pound weatherproof sandbags. Can’t you hear the graduation speaker: “As you commence your journey into life, there is no safety netting for protection, so wear a helmet and keep your head on a swivel.”

Be fair and square - “Just call it the same for everyone, ref!” I’ve heard that fan lament a thousand times across the universe of sports, as if some adult puts on a silly shirt and embarks on a mission of purposely favoring one team over another. In track, sometimes coaches become judges, but I never would; I just didn’t trust myself to disqualify my own athlete, and I wouldn’t make a call against a competing team for fear of bringing the house down on my head. My belief in sports adjudications is, “Officials don’t cheat, but sometimes humans see what they want to see even if they didn’t see it.”

Snippets - Athletes are bigger, stronger and faster, and play more hours of supervised competitive sports on every type of surface imaginable than back in my Chuck Taylor days when athletes didn’t rehydrate every five minutes. We messed up our knees in my day; now athletes talk about tendons and ligaments and toss about terms like meniscus and plantar fasciitis and torn labrum of the shoulder or hip. It’s enough to make you scared to take to the field. Cape girls’ lacrosse will host the winner of Newark Charter and Tatnall on Saturday at 6 p.m in the first round of the state tournament. Interviews are over for the Cape position of boys’ basketball head coach. A committee recommendation goes to the high school athletic director and principal, and is forwarded to the school board for approval. I keep my ear to the track in a town where the train doesn’t run. I know all the muppets by one name or nicknames. I have a pretty good idea who is getting this job, but I gave up ice cream; I’m not in the scoop business anymore.

Go on now, git!