Carrie Clausius a perfect choice for Tough Cookie Award

Lost it - I was presenting an award at the 2015 field hockey banquet and lost my composure. It was the One Tough Cookie Award, named for my friend Barbara Dougherty, who died Oct. 27 of that season. I had introduced “Cookie” to the Cape field hockey team in October 2012, and the rest was magic. At the 2015 banquet, I pulled the cover off the plaque and it read “Lizzie Frederick.” I was toast. Ever since that breakdown, I defer to Debbie Windett to hand out the award. On Monday, she announced Carrie Clausius as the winner, and I just whispered “Perfect.” Carrie and I became close when she was shut down for a year after an ACL tear followed by surgery and a long rehab. Two years ago, when Cape won its 13th straight state lacrosse title, players surrounded the shelved Carrie so she could put on her No. 13 jersey. Carrie cried and I walked away into the twilight. My whole world turned a misty blue. A Lucinda Williams song played from my iTunes library when I sat down after the banquet to process photos: “I think I lost it. Let me know if you come across it. Let me know if I let it fall/Along a back road somewhere.”

Lock three times - A rocking and raucous full-house crowd was full-boat into it Wednesday afternoon at Beacon Middle School for the opening wrestling match of the season featuring power programs Beacon and visiting Georgetown. The match was tied at 42-42 after 15 weight classes. Beacon was riding pins from Finn Gannon at 76 pounds, Briggs Gannon at 82 and Blake Walker at 112, while Georgetown countered with pancakes by Johnathan Ramirez at 94, Ayden Collins at 124, Josh Butler at 138, Cody Nichols at 170 and Braiden Emerik at 185. The match would be decided by the heavyweights: Wyatt Graviet of Beacon versus Misael Soto-Velasquez of Georgetown, a pair of big young’uns with the weight of the moment on their shoulders. Graviet won his first bout and the match for Beacon with a 6-1 decision helped by three locking hands infractions by Soto totaling four points. “I was telling Wyatt in the final period, when they were standing up, to keep his arms extended to keep him away; heavyweight matches can turn in an instant,” said Beacon coach Chip Wilt. 

Get ‘em out, keep ‘em out - My friend Dave Robinson told me years ago when he was the principal of Caesar Rodney, “The key to wrestling success is to get kids involved in middle school, then keep them interested and motivated through high school. Wrestling is such a challenging sport for a high school athlete. You have to love the culture of the wrestling room and be strong enough to handle disappointment and keep moving forward.” A big moment in a wrestling match is immediately afterward when the grapplers shake hands, followed by the arm of the winner being raised. Beacon wrestlers from the 2017-18 roster that were the nucleus of  two Cape state championship teams were Luke Bender, Dalton Deevey, Mikey Frederick, Carson Kammerer and Lucas Ruppert. Alex Taylor was a first-time wrestler in 2018-19.  

Hubba Hubbard - Susan Hubbard, 66-69 age group, of Raleigh, N.C., completed her mission of 50 half-marathons in 50 states by completing the Rehoboth half-marathon Dec. 2 in 4:03: 49, which is an 18:36 mile pace. The world of adult fitness is stocked with goal-oriented persons with the time and income to spend on personal endeavors; the motivations are indeed personal and to be respected, and may involve personal adversity. Endurance athletes come mostly from well-educated backgrounds because with so many hours on the trails you need something else to think about other than, “Why am I out here?” 

Snippets - I like the senior awards section of sports banquets where the graduating seniors give silly certificates to underclassmen. It’s just a glimpse into the team culture, but it also reveals that sharing a journey through oh-so-serious competition of the season reveals everyone’s quirks of personality. If someone described you as “quirky,” your first retort would be, “How am I quirky? Quirky in what way?” At Monday’s field hockey banquet, senior Addy Basile gave my granddaughter Lina the Miss Congeniality Award, and I thought, “Perfect,” because Lina loves her teammates and is a friend and champion of them all. It just comes naturally to her. Going into the extended close-out of the year this holiday season, the personal physicality question is “Tighten up or fatten up?” Everybody out of the pool; here comes the Otezla Cannonballer! Go on now, git!