Teams don’t need to be in that position

The Cape lacrosse girls beat St. Andrew’s last Thursday night and went into a diving dog pile of celebration in the center of the field. The St. Andrew’s team grouped together then walked through the obligatory gauntlet of congratulatory handshakes and spontaneous hugs. And then they were asked to hang around for second-place medals and a trophy and somewhere between their trophy and Cape’s championship trophy Viking students stormed the field.

The Saints remained gracious, but the adult administrators in charge were pushing it. The Saints should have grabbed a trophy, then headed off for a team meeting. No team needs to be in the middle of another’s celebration. Adults are often just dumb, and that was dumb and wrong and classless due to no one’s fault.

SHOOK AND GROGAN - Their older brothers Mike and Tommy were always mentioned in the same sentence. The boys won a boys state lacrosse championship together in 2006. And now the little sisters have their own championship. They get in the conversation and may in fact dominate it.

“This one was for us,” said Raelynn Grogan, who started to cry. But don’t let the sentiment and emotion fool you, Shook and Grogan are ultimate street fighters.

BE COOL NO POOL – Thirty-five years ago the community was against the building of a school swimming pool because, “With all the water around here why do we need a pool?” And so a school at the beach graduates a couple hundred each June that couldn’t save themselves if they fell out of a boat or slipped off a mud bank while fishing.
And absolutely never try to save another unless you are trained and in great shape and have a floatation device to shove at them when they attack your head. Just be careful and never take your eyes off your kids or Grandpop inside his truck tube.

HARLEY LAID DOWN - A skilled bike rider knows how to lay the bike down to avoid tumbling or to avert a collision. Road runner Lucas Messner, 27 years old with two kids, won the Lee Masser 5-Miler last Sunday and when I asked the Lancaster resident where he worked he just smiled and said, “I did work at Harley but I just got laid off.” I guess the bike laid him down? So what happened - did yuppie wannabes stop buying Harleys? Luke trains about 50 miles a week with one day on the track for speed work.

SNIPPETS - There are 16 teams in the state baseball tournament. Locally, Sussex Central will host Milford Tuesday, May 26, while Sussex Tech will host Dickinson. Game time is 4 p.m.

Softball is down to the final eight teams. Sussex Tech will host Milford at 5 p.m., May 26. Caravel Academy, with Randy Johnson of Lewes and Cape fame as head coach, will host Indian River at 5 p.m.

I was listening to the ninth inning of the Phillies game last Saturday afternoon while sitting in the cab of my pick-up truck on Lewes Beach. Then Alex Rodriquez reached out and sent an outside pitch into short porch of the right field bleachers for a game tying, two-run homer and Brad Lidge blew the save followed by blowing the game. That’s when I concluded that A- Rod should be serving a one- year suspension with random drug tests to make sure all the juice is out of his system.

Steve Spence, who was in goal for two state championships for Cape’s boys lacrosse team, just graduated from Widener Law School. Other Cape student athletes in the Widener School of Law are Ross Karsnitz, Sean Meluney and John Dillon.

The University of Delaware concluded its baseball season with a record of 28-20. Ryan Reed, the starting catcher and former Cape Henlopen player, finished the season with a .337 batting average along with nine home runs. Scott Shockley concluded his season with the Hens with a .275 batting average and 10 home runs. Shockley lettered all four years at Delaware. Both he and Reed are seniors.

Keith Hocker, on his way to the University of South Carolina, was awarded the prestigious Chris Short Award at the Cape Henlopen baseball banquet May 20. The Cornell Big Red reached the national championship in college lacrosse to face Syracuse Monday, May 25. A local connection to Cornell lacrosse is Lance Derrickson who played for Cornell in the late ‘90s. Cornell graduates with local connections include Halsey Knapp, Jen Purnell and the late Hank Brittingham.

Cape athlete Allison Young is a student at Syracuse while local College of Marine and Earth Studies professor Dr. Joe Scudlark, is an illustrious graduate and has been known to represent himself as my cousin when picking up free tickets for Syracuse at Temple football games. I neglected to tell Joe that all Temple tickets are free. Hey diddle diddle, let’s run up the middle.