Cape field hockey team wins fourth straight championship

Cape Henlopen field hockey coach Kate Austin summed up her team’s 19th victory of the year with pride. “Cape girls know how to close out championships,” she said.

They put that battle-tested confidence to great use at every step of the state tournament, coming back from two goals down to beat Sussex Tech 3-2 in the quarterfinal game. They next fell behind 3-1 to Padua in the semifinal game before tying it up 4-4 in regulation and going on to notch a thrilling win in sudden-death overtime.

That was all before the championship game. Cape took a 1-0 lead, but it would evaporate when Polytech scored with 15:09 to go.

“We don’t crack or crumble,” Austin would say. “We just play harder.”

Cape took a brief time-out, and then took the field and scored two more goals to take a 3-1 lead with five minutes left.

Or as their coach put it, they played their game, finally.

And it could not have come at a better time.

The victory extends Cape field hockey’s unbeaten streak to 55 straight.

They’ve won 11 straight state tournament games under Austin and 15 in a row over the last four years.

It seems impossible that any high school team could rise to the occasion year after year, but for the fourth straight time, Cape Henlopen brought home the field hockey trophy.

Congratulations to a tough, disciplined team that knows how to win.

We also salute perhaps the most dedicated fan at the game, Cape Gazette photographer Dan Cook, who was knocked out cold on the sidelines of the Sussex Tech-Salesianum football game Nov. 14, stopping the game until he could be loaded into an ambulance.

He was later released from the hospital, went home, and then got up and went back out to shoot the field hockey final Nov. 15.

“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” he wrote, to accompany his outstanding photos of the game, including the one on page 1 of today’s Gazette.

And thanks to Dan, we didn’t miss it either.