Cape boys’ basketball outlasts Central in OT
Junior guard Ja’Vaughn Burton scored 21 points and senior sharpshooter Collin Mallet added 15 on 5-for-5 three-point shooting as the Cape Henlopen boys’ basketball team survived a game effort from winless Sussex Central to earn a 64-58 overtime win Jan. 7 in Georgetown.
“We wear ‘Believe In Us’ on the back of our warm-ups, and that’s what we did tonight,” Burton said after the Vikings ended the game on an 11-2 run and avoided their first loss to the Knights since 2014. “We got this win together.”
Burton poured in 16 points after intermission, knocked down three shots from long range, and grabbed a team-high seven rebounds to pace Cape. His steal and coast-to-coast lay-in put the Vikings ahead 51-48 with five minutes left in the fourth quarter, but the Knights countered with an 8-2 run to take a three-point lead at the 1:54 mark.
A few possessions later, senior forward Sam Luciano-Solomon knotted the score on a pair of pressure-cooker free throws with 44 seconds remaining in regulation. After some untimely misses at the charity stripe from Central, Cape got a chance to end it at the buzzer but couldn’t get off a shot.
Luciano-Solomon opened overtime with two more clutch free throws, and sophomore guard Kay’von Jackson then scored on a fast break to give Cape a 60-56 cushion. From there, the Vikings salted the game away at the line, canning four of six free throws in the final minute.
Luciano-Solomon came up huge down the stretch for Cape (3-4, 2-3 Henlopen North), notching nine of his 11 points in the fourth quarter and overtime.
Mallet was money all night from beyond the arc, hitting shot after shot from either corner to help keep the Vikings in contention. He drained three long-balls over the first 12 minutes of action, putting his team ahead 21-12 with a rainbow 22-footer midway through the second quarter. That was Cape’s biggest lead of the night, as Central answered with a 10-0 run to go up 22-21 at halftime.
Head coach Shemik Thompson was disappointed with his team’s showing against a Central squad that had lost its previous five games by an average of 29 points.
“We didn’t play well mentally,” Thompson said. “It was about getting one stop at a time and taking care of the basketball for us, and we struggled with that. It’s basic stuff. There was no sense of urgency from us. Take care of the basketball, swing the basketball, and get back and play defense. Hopefully that’ll come shortly, but we’re happy we got a win.”
Senior guard Isaac Pettit scored 25 points for Sussex Central (0-6, 0-5 Henlopen North), which hit an obscene 64 percent of its field goal tries after the break but still couldn’t pull out a victory. The Knights also got 16 points on 7-for-8 shooting from junior swingman Chase Boyle, a former Mariner Middle standout.
Cape will return to action Tuesday, Jan. 14, when the Vikings visit Caesar Rodney.
