Cape tracksters excel at Alvernia Holiday Classic

Alvernia Holiday Classic - Cape has been traveling to indoor/outdoor meets in the winter for the last 50 years. The boys’ and girls’ teams competed Dec. 9 at the Tom and Helen Flynn Indoor Track and Field Complex in Reading, Pa. Ben Clifton won the open 800 meters in 2:03.14. Cape’s Cardin Benjamin was fifth in 2:05.94. Benjamin, an all-state soccer player, also placed seventh in the 1,600 in 4:43, with Jason Baker ninth in 4:48. Cape junior Robert Redden was second in the 60-meter hurdles in 8.59. The Vikings boys also captured three of the top five places in the pole vault with Bailey Fletcher second, Eddie Houck fourth and Brady Mauro fifth. Addison Bowman, a junior, was the girls’ champion in the pole vault with a jump of 9-feet-6-inches. Hannah Maney (1:05:21) and Kennedy Johnson (1:05:65) placed fifth and sixth, respectively, in the open 400 meters. Cape will compete at the Worcester County track meet Wednesday, Dec. 13, then at the UC Holiday Invitational Saturday, Dec. 16. If you have a relative competing – a child, even! – learn all the digital data retrieval sites; they are live – even instantaneous, and milesplit.com is a good place to start. 

Gap slapped - Looking at results for Delaware high school girls’ basketball Dec. 7-10, I counted 13 teams that lost a game by at least 30 points. Half of them didn’t cross over 15 points scored. This is worthy of a forum discussion – are there still chat rooms? – because no athlete needs to get housed every time they take the court. Basketball is a highly skilled game requiring athleticism and fitness. In my opinion, it is the toughest of sports to master unless you play year-round. You know the difference between a Greenwood Mennonite School and a Salisbury Christian School? Thirty-nine points. 

Fans being played - The money is so obscene, from Shohei Ohtani signing a 10-year, $700 million contract to each Lakers player awarded $500,000 for winning that lame in-season tournament in Las Vegas. Ultimately, that money comes from the pockets of fans who are now being encouraged by pro sports leagues to bet on games just in case the game itself can’t hold their interest. That’s why my preferred resting place is late-afternoon middle school where everyone knows your name.    

Trackwrestling - Fans of high school and college wrestling use the website trackwrestling.com to retrieve match information, from invitationals to dual meets. There is a free version plus an enhanced version that costs money, and it works on your phone, so you know who's in the hold on mat six. It’s not the same as being there, but you don't have to leave the house or find parking. This early season, the Polytech, Milford and Delmar invitationals are already in the books. Cape will open the dual-meet season Wednesday, Dec. 13, at Milford. 

Snippets - What Delaware high school wrestling coach has a son and daughter who are head college coaches in sports other than wrestling? Don Parsley of Milford. Now retired from teaching, Don still drives a school bus and delivered the field hockey team to the state tournament. Parsley’s daughter, Nikki Parsley-Blocker, is the head field hockey coach at Liberty University. Nate Parsley is the aquatics director and head coach of the men's and women’s swim teams at Salisbury University. He is also the Gulls’ assistant softball coach. The 2023 Division I FCS semifinals features University of Albany versus South Dakota State at 7 p.m, Friday, Dec. 15, and North Dakota State versus Montana at 4:40 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 16. These games are always great TV. They also raise the question, “How do you sell harsh weather and remoteness to recruits?” Answer: Most of them are from that region of the country and stay close to home. Go on now, git!