Athletes of the Week July 24
Jake Bamforth
Jake filled the time between his undergraduate degree in public health from the University of South Florida in Tampa and the pursuit of a master’s degree from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo., with a Cape May to Cape Henlopen swim across the mouth of the Delaware Bay. There was no chance Jake would not wear a wetsuit with close friends tossing around words like jellyfish and sea lice. And quite honestly, Jake is more the skinny runner dude and doesn’t have the ballast or buoyancy for open-water swimming. “I did my first triathlon in the spring of 2018 and was hooked,” Jake said. “In a little over two years, I’ve competed in 10 triathlons with five overall wins. I will be on the CSU club triathlon team where we race in the Mountain Conference against other colleges in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona. We will also compete at the national championships.”
Ava Calciano
A left-handed hitting infielder for the Delaware Tribe, Ava helped lead her squad to a fifth-place finish among 32 teams at the 12U USSSA East National Championship this past weekend in Salisbury, Md. Hitting from the three hole, Ava was 14-for-25 (.560) with four extra base hits, five walks and 10 runs scored. The Tribe (Delaware state champs) were eliminated by Maryland state champion Southern Maryland Osprey in the quarterfinals 4-3. On the season, Ava boasts a .551 batting average. Ava is a rising eighth-grader at Mariner Middle School and resides in Milton. She also plays volleyball. Her dad Chris is a former major league scout for the Boston Red Sox.
Montana Jones
Montana is a rising Cape ninth-grader straight out of Beacon. She’s a four-sport athlete who plays volleyball, basketball and lacrosse, and runs track. Montana is a sprinter – she’s legit fast over the 100 and 200 meters. She’s the type of athlete who usually ends up on attack in lacrosse or as a workhorse midfielder on some squads. But Montana plays defense in lacrosse and goes end to end with the ball faster than you can say, “Taylor Gooch,” a D1 player at Temple who is now the head coach at Sussex Academy. Montana was recently selected to the All-American Lacrosse Philadelphia Girls’ Command Class of 2024. She is listed as a midfielder. Montana missed out on track and lacrosse this spring because of corona, but she is rocking it this summer flashing her talents.
Tyler Muse
Tyler, a 26-year-old runner out of Bel Air, Md., and Wilmington University, threw the hammer down July 18 at the Santa Sprint 5K on a hot day in Dewey Beach, running a blistering 16:00.7, a 5:10 mile pace, to win over Nick Cruz (16:50). Muse and Cruz, the language just flows like the young runners. Tyler won the NCR Half Marathon in May 2019 in 1:15:40. Tyler is a former winner of the Under Armour Sole of the City 10K in 31:59. Muse has also run a 15:41 personal best in the 5K. In October 2018, Tyler placed second in the Baltimore Marathon with a time of 2:35.55. In March 2019, Tyler won the Shamrock Half Marathon in Virginia Beach, beating a field of 5,836 runners in 1:07:48. Tyler ran for Bel Air High School and was named 2010 Maryland Cross Country Runner of the Year.
