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Young guns of lacrosse get to ‘play’ on Cape’s turf fields

David Hart jumped 7-1 while in college at Purdue
May 7, 2019

Little Laxers - Four young players got to dress up and warm up with the Cape varsity team May 3, as each player was individually introduced and got to run out on the field and stand with the team for the national anthem. “It’s just a great experience for everyone. I know our team just loves it,” said Cape coach Lindsey Underwood. The young players were Harlow Draper, Ella Johnson, Hazel Mancari and Meredith Frederick. Draper is the daughter of Hank and granddaughter of the late Tom Draper, who was an All-American at Brown University.

Young guns - On May 4 at Legends Stadium, there was the Run for Recovery 5K on the track starting at 9 a.m., while the Atlantic Lacrosse boys hosted Caroline Lacrosse on the two turf fields and the grass field. Cape coach Mark D’Ambrogi helped set it up. “The U14 team played on Champions. The U12 and U10 played on Legends, and the U8 team was on the grass,” D’Ambrogi said. “All of the teams are part of the ESYLA, the Eastern Shore Youth Lacrosse Association. A great chance to showcase the Cape campus. We want kids to want to play at Cape. What a great facility we have on the east side of Route 1. I know the young kids really enjoy playing here.”

Middle school lax - I watched Beacon win over visiting Easton 9-6 May 2 after winning at Easton the previous Tuesday 11-6. Easton is a physically formidable club, and middle school games are generally won on late-game runs and surges. Beacon goalie Anna Lopez made three consecutive saves on the same Easton possession late in the fourth quarter to preserve the victory.

Get out of town - When you're a young man, you remember all the people who told you what you couldn't do. When you're an older man, people tell you what you didn't do. Saturday at the Run for Recovery 5K, David Hart, 44, ran 27:01, but when he was in college at Purdue University, he was a 7-foot-1 high jumper. I found that at first unbelievable but quickly changed that reaction to incredible. His son Steve is a 12-year-old seventh grader at Beacon who jumped 4-foot-10 at the middle school invitational May 3 and ran 23:49 for the 5K in the Run for Recovery. Theo Hart, a 9-year-old fourth-grader, ran 26:56. If I had jumped 7-1 in college, I'd have a T-shirt that read, "I jumped 7-1, don’t tell me I didn't."

The Lame Game - Not sure which annoyed me more, the Phillies bullpen coming apart late in the game May 4 turning an 8-5 lead with five outs to go into a 10-8 loss to the Nationals, or real Philly people doing the wave while their own shaky pitcher was on the mound. Where is the Philly attitude? The wave is lame. South Philly ain’t the Jersey Shore. I’d have to go to the top row making sure no wave broke behind my head. Is it me or does Bryce Harper look like Ryan Howard after signing a fat contract?

Snippets - The Delaware women’s track and field team won the CAA conference championship this past weekend with 174 points with Towson in second with 160. Roxanne Ramirez (Sussex Tech) placed fourth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 10:59. The NCAA men’s lacrosse championships return to Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field this year with semifinals slated for May 25 and finals May 27. Penn State is the top seed with Duke at No. 2, Virginia No. 3 and Penn No. 4. The women’s tournament features Maryland as the top seed followed by Boston College, North Carolina and Northwestern. The D3 men’s tournament begins with 32 teams featuring Salisbury as one of the top seeds and also including Ursinus (Brooks Buck) and Franklin and Marshall (Holden Kammerer) with former Cape players. Salisbury is also one of the top 4 seeds in the women’s D3 tournament. The DIAA computerized system for seeding state tournaments proves one thing – the soulless computer doesn’t know what it’s talking about. It only knows what’s programmed into it. Cape boys’ lacrosse, 10-2, is currently ranked seventh and Salesianum, 6-5, is 32nd. Each team plays 15 games and then the computer resets with no guarantee the state’s top teams are on opposite sides of the bracket or that Sallies even makes it into the tournament. Cape baseball is currently 9-4 with five games remaining. A big game is set for Wednesday, May 8, as the Vikings host 11-1 Sussex Tech. Cape soccer (9-2) has challenging games left versus Polytech and Caesar Rodney. Coaches play games “one at a time,” but sportswriters jump over people. Go on now, git!

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