Cape girls’ indoor track impresses with second-place finish

The Cape Henlopen girls’ indoor track team went south to the Snow Hill Invite Dec. 14 to compete with 21 schools from across the region in the marathon six-and-a-half-hour track and field meet. When the dust had settled after 15 events, the Vikings had scored 74 points to finish second overall behind defending Henlopen Conference champion Smyrna with 115 points. North Caroline was third with 73 points, while J.M. Bennett was fourth with 63 points and Queen Anne’s was fifth overall with 46 points. Conference teams in the meet were Caesar Rodney finishing sixth, Sussex Tech 11th and Lake Forest 12th.

Cape kicked off the meet by winning the 4-by-800-meter relay with the team of freshman Meredith Lockwood, sophomore Jackie Cannon, sophomore Darby Klopp and freshman Olivia Brozefsky with a time of 10:41 for the best time at Snow Hill this year.

“That was an exciting way to start the season,” said coach Gilbert Maull. “Olivia had two girls catch her on the final lap, and she had to go wide on the final turn and outkick them both to get the win.” It was the very first indoor race for the four talented young distance runners.

Cape grabbed two second-place finishes with C’eyre Middleton in the shot put with a throw of 33-feet-8-inches and DaJonte Mackey in the 55-meter hurdles with a time of 9.21 seconds. Lockwood came back to finish third in the 800 meters in 2:38.5, while Mackey was third in the triple jump at 32-feet-8-inches.

Sophomore jumper Marcella Sabbagh cleared a personal-best height of 4-feet-10-inches in the high jump to finish fourth, while Mackenzie Parker also logged a fourth in the shot put with a throw of 29-feet-11-inches and Brozefsky was also fourth in the 1,600-meter run in 5:58.

The 4-by-200-meter relay of Mackey, Chakyriah Wright, Rose Minni and Timesha Cannon ran 1:57.8 to finish sixth, while the 4-by-400-meter relay of Klopp, Cannon, Jody Boyer and Brozefsky finished fifth overall in 4:44.3. Vienna Iacona was sixth in the 55-meter dash in 7.87, while Cannon was fifth in the 55 meters in 7.77.

“It’s not how you start the season, but how you end it that matters,” said senior Chakyiah Wright. “We have a lot of young athletes, and we did pretty well in our first meet.”

The Vikings boys finish tied for eighth with 33 points, while Caesar Rodney won the meet with 88 points. The Vikings were led by thrower Jacob Osborne in second place with a toss of 38-feet-1-inch, while distance runner Greg Boyce was third in the 1,600 meters in 4:50, sixth in the 800 meters in 2:12, and seventh in the high jump in 5-feet-4-inches. Ryan Head was third in the pole vault at 10-feet-6-inches, while Christian Partlow was seventh in the 300-meter dash in 40.08. The Cape 4-by-200-meter relay team was sixth in 1:47.2, while Garrett Elgin was sixth in the triple jump in 37-feet-1-inches. 

Both teams will return to Snow Hill Wednesday, Dec. 21, for the Pat Russo Invitational.