Seahawks soccer makes prey of Cape 2-0
The warm and fuzzy feelings of friends and travel club teammates are put on hold for 80 minutes each season when the Sussex Academy and Cape soccer squads battle for Route 9 domination and bragging rights. This season’s victory Oct. 8 went to the Seahawks 2-0.
The Seahawks are 9-1 with seven shutouts. Cape moves to 5-4-2.
After an intense back and forth in the first 24 minutes, the Seahawks struck with a goal by Chase Ballinger off a crossing pass by Liam Stegall. The Seahawks went into the halftime break up 1-0.
Cape had the Sussex Academy fans on the edge of their seats early in the second half when the Vikings’ Cardin Benjamin broke away on a fast break. But the tense moment was short lived when Seahawks goalie C.J. Norton left the cage and stuffed the threat with a sliding tackle save.
The Seahawks’ second goal came off a 50/50 ball collision between Cape goalie Jake Hutchison and Sussex Academy’s Jesse Jean-Louis who gained possession and put the ball into the net.
“This is a very big win for us,” said Norton. “We’ve not done so hot against Cape in the past, and to come out this year and form together get the shutout at home with a big crowd means the world to us. It helps us advance in the conference standings and hold that first seed. We had a plan to take them out of the game mentally and I think we accomplished that. Once we did that, we dominated the game. I couldn’t be happier with our communication.”
The friendship and mutual respect between the teams was evident throughout the contest.
“We have a lot of friends on the Cape team,” said Sussex Academy forward George Sapna. “It’s a big game. We’ve lost 5-0 and 1-0 the last two years and it was pretty rough. It’s a big one for us, especially when they bring about 100 fans. It’s good motivation for us to keep moving forward.”
Sussex Academy outshot the Vikings 7-4 and held a 6-1 edge in corners.
Norton made four saves, while Vikings keeper Jake Hutchison had five.
“We know enough about how Cape performs and what makes them successful, and we prepare our players on how to find success against them,” said Seahawks head coach RJ Dina. “We talked about how Cape got the better of us the last two years, and we prepare on how organized we need to be. Kudos to my guys for their preparedness. I tell them they can play 10 games and win the first nine and it doesn’t really mean anything because you can drop the next four or five and be done with the season. So we have to be just focused on the next day, and really all we prepare for is that next game.”
The Seahawks travel to Trinity Christian School of Fairfax Friday, Oct. 11.
