Tia Jarvis scores 21.5 points at indoor track event

Cape sophomore Tia Jarvis won two events and ran on a third-place 800-meter relay to score 21.5 points and lead her team to a third-place finish in a 20-team meet Dec. 11 in Snow Hill, Md. The Cape girls finished with 63.5 points, while Kent Island won the meet with 71 points, followed by North Caroline with 65 points for second. The Vikings left the facility after the mile relay with a three-point lead, but by the time they arrived in Lewes, they had fallen back to third, as the shot put had not been scored into the meet results.  

Henlopen Conference teams in the meet were Sussex Academy, fourth, 45 points; Caesar Rodney, ninth, 32 points; Smyrna, 10th, 31 points; Sussex Central, 11th, 22 points. 

Jarvis ran 43.65 in the 300-meter dash to win the event, while also taking only one jump of 16-feet-6 ½-inches to win the long jump event.

Senior Olivia Brozefsky, scoring 17 ½ points in the meet, finished third in the 1,600 meters in 5:46.25, second in the pole vault in 9-feet even and ran on two relays.  

“It was fun to compete with the team again for my last year in high school,” said Brozefsky, who won the conference title in the 3,200 as a freshman. “We are working hard together as a team and competed strong in the meet today.”

Liz Melson was fifth in the 1,600 meters in 6:01.90, while junior Taylor Johnson was fifth in the 800 meters in 2:41.61. Freshman Katie Kuhlman was fifth in the 3,200-meter run in 12:46.62, while Mai Nuebling finished sixth in the 3,200 meters in 13:00.17. Sawyer Walker finished fourth in the high jump in 4-feet-4-inches, while Rose Minni finished sixth in the long jump in 13-feet-1 ½-inches and fourth in the triple jump in 29-feet-3-inches.

The Vikings picked up 20 points in the three relays, as the team of Kuhlman, Melson, Nuebling and Brozefsky finished second in the 3,200 relay in a time of 10:44.40. The team of Jarvis, Maggie Brown, Arianna Dabney and Walker finished third in the 800 relay in a time of 1:58.05. The team of Kuhlman, Brown, Johnson and Brozefsky finished third in the 1,600 relay in a time of 4:37.88.

The Cape boys’ team finished second overall with a total of 59 points, while Kent Island won the meet with 71.5 points. Henlopen Conference teams in the meet were Sussex Central, fourth, 55 points; Caesar Rodney, sixth, 41 points; Sussex Academy, 14th, 8 points; and Smyrna, 15th, 6 points.

Thrower Josiah Miller won the shot put with a toss of 43-feet-4-inches to lead the Vikings, while Bryan Ciabattoni cleared 12-feet-6-inches for a new personal best in the pole vault.

Hunter Jones finished fourth in the 800 meters in 2:10.36, while Julian Callaway was fifth in 2:11.85. David Smith II was eighth in the 800 meters in 2:14.72, while John Small was eighth in the 55-meter hurdles in 8.74. Andrew Wolak also finished eighth in the 500 meters in 1:16.40.  

Liam O’Donnell finished sixth in the 1,600 in a personal best of 5:04.97. The Cape boys scored three runners in the 3,200, as Lance Kauffman was sixth in 10:49.18, Ryan Baker was seventh in 10:57.38 and Daniel Adili-Khams was eighth in 11:04.05. 

Karnell Wise was seventh in the high jump in 5-feet-6-inches, and he won the long jump in 20-feet-2-inches. Giovanni Bendfeldt finished fourth in the shot put at 37-feet-5-inches, while John Small won the triple jump in 38-feet-5 ½-inches. Daeshaun Lewis was third in the triple jump in 34-feet-1 ½-inches, while Scott Webster was fourth in the triple jump in 31-feet-11-inches.  

The boys of Cape picked up 10 points in the three relay races, as the 1,600 relay team was second in 3:49.70, the 3,200 relay team finished eighth in 9:42.30 and the 800 relay team finished eighth in 1:42.89.

Cape distance tradition

With the current high numbers of middle school cross country teams at Beacon and Mariner, and elementary kids flowing into the Seashore Striders during the past few years, things are looking good for Cape’s high school program. Six of the seven members of the Cape girls’ varsity cross country team had previously run on either the middle school team or the Seashore Striders team, and five had national experience before their freshman year in high school. It is the same on the boys’ side, with Cape now experiencing such high numbers that coach Matt Lindell can’t travel with all his distance runners due to a limitation on the number of athletes in events on the indoor circuit.  

“It’s a good problem to have with a high number of distance runners, all with good work ethic and attitudes,” said Lindell, who enjoyed one of his finest cross country seasons this past fall.

Cape girls took second in the 3,200 relay Dec. 11 with the team of Katie Kuhlman, Elizabeth Melson, Mia Nuebling and Olivia Brozefsky and the girls combined have competed in 11 youth national championships between them.

The glory days of the ’80s under coach George Pepper and the late ’90s under coach Pat Pollock were when Cape was winning many championships with so many distance runners and there was competition among the team members. Those days are returning to Cape, as I counted 19 distance runners on the boys’ side and 12 on the girls’ side at a recent indoor track practice in 40-degree weather.

“The distance girls we have this winter all get along with each other, have fun together and work hard for us,” said first-year Cape coach Martin Rodriguez.

It looks like the cycle will continue for a while, as the Seashore Striders this fall had more than 50 in the program, crowned 12 youth All-Americans and had some of the best 9-year-olds in the country, led by Allison Ortiz who ran 12:40 this fall for the 3K distance. In addition, Beacon and Mariner enjoyed higher-than-normal numbers this past fall led by coaches Kenny Riedel and Paul Eckert.