Cape girls’ basketball falls to Dover
The Cape girls’ basketball team had won 68 consecutive Henlopen North games before a scrappy Dover squad snapped the streak with a 48-44 victory Dec. 19.
The last time the Vikings had lost a North game was against Polytech in January 2019.
Missed shots and turnovers cost the Vikings in a game where Dover took 15 more shots than Cape. That could have given the Vikings 12 to 18 more points with their average shooting percentage. The Senators also outworked Cape on the offensive boards, grabbing 13 rebounds to the Vikings’ four.
Cape came out cold, with the normally keen-shooting Vikings going 20% from the field, scoring just eight points in the first quarter. The Vikings took a slim 35-31 lead into the halftime break. Each team scored 12 points in the third, but the Senators were hot down the stretch, and their physicality knocked the Vikings off their normally calm and controlled play. The game was tied at 43-43 with less than a minute to go, but Dover outscored the Vikings 5-1 to garner the victory.
“It’s turnovers and it’s possessions,” said Cape coach Pat Woods. “We’ve said it from the start of the season; we have to fight for possessions. The way you fight for possessions is to take care of the ball – don’t lose possessions, and rebound the ball. It comes down to those two things, and that’s where they killed us. We turned it over at a ridiculous rate, and they out-rebounded us. Those last few buckets, they bodied us, and got the rebound and scored.”
“This is a wake-up call for our team,” said sophomore Amalia Fruchtman. “It proves that we still have to work hard. Nothing’s granted. We still have to go out every day and work hard at practice. Things aren’t going to be given to us just because we’ve won games previously. We have to work as a unit. This was a good game to see that. You could tell that Dover wanted it.”
“The turnovers were definitely the biggest problem,” said sophomore guard Faith Re. “We struggled relaxing on offense. We were very sped up and not under control at all, kinda frantic and didn’t box out to get rebounds.”
The Cape JV team moved to 3-0 on the season with a 36-19 win over the Senators. Jurnee White led the Vikings with eight points, while Mairead Rishko scored seven, and tallied five assists and five steals. Harper Mamele and Sydney Whetzel each tallied six points and snagged seven rebounds. Maya Yngve hit for five.
