Riders storm past Seahawks 2-1 to spoil Senior Night

The Sussex Academy boys' soccer team did something it hasn’t done since 2023 on Senior Night Oct. 23 – lose a game to a Henlopen Conference opponent at home. 

Caesar Rodney, the reigning Division I champion, rode past Sussex Academy, the reigning Division II champion, 2-1 in double overtime to crash the senior celebration.

“Any conference rival or a top team playing a top team, you know these guys are gonna treat it like a playoff game and take it seriously,” said Sussex Academy coach R.J. Dina. “There's a lot at stake in terms of seeding and those kinds of things. It's Senior Night. A lot of pressure on the boys playing at home. We've never not been up for the task.”

CR senior Jamal Richards opened up the scoring in the early minutes of the first half, finding himself wide open in front of the goal 20 yards out and striking a ball just beyond the fingertips of Austin Taylor. It would be the only goal the senior conceded in regulation of the high-stakes affair. 

The Seahawks bounced back. Sussex Academy senior George Sapna’s assertion in the box confounded Caesar Rodney and the senior knotted the game at 1-1. The Seahawks, however, were dealing with issues beyond the scoreboard. Defensive stalwart Ben Steimel left the game, creating a void in leadership and toughness. Steimel’s classmate Liam Stegall was handed a critical yellow in the first half too.

“When one of your senior captains, who’s played every minute of his entire career, goes down, we need to show a little more grit,” Dina said. “We were a little shell-shocked when we pulled Liam off, with a bigger game Wednesday [against Indian River]. We never got back into a rhythm after that, and then Ben goes down right away and you lose two guys that really are the plugs in the middle of the field, your energy, your communication and leadership.”

It looked like Sussex Academy was going to take the lead on a few occasions, but the game appeared predestined to leak over the 80 minutes of regulation. In the first overtime, senior Chase Ballinger sent a ball rolling across the six-yard box, but no one was home to answer.

The visitors wasted no time in the second overtime attacking the Sussex Academy net, and Owen Zura played a beautiful ball to a streaking Richards, who timed his run perfectly en route to burying the game-winner.

Caesar Rodney secured its second win in a row against the back-to-back Division II champions, but Dina is confident it was a matter of things breaking the other way in the 2025 game.

“We can win any game that we play,” Dina said. “Things go wrong, and it doesn't always work out that way, but I'm confident enough in this group that if they step out onto the field they can win any game that they play.”

A regular-season loss doesn’t overshadow the tremendous success the Class of 2026 has had as members of the Sussex Academy boys’ soccer program.

“This senior class is the one that we started with, and in their freshman year, we kind of committed to each other,” Dina said. “In the past, eighth- and ninth-graders are leaving this school going somewhere else. This is the group that committed to me as the coach and I committed to them in development, and that's a special group. In their four years, they won 52 games – that's unprecedented. We’re a program now that on average wins 13 games a year. That's something special, and it's a special group to me.”

The Seahawks close out the regular season at 5:45 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 29, at Indian River.