Cape soccer wins Henlopen North title

The Cape soccer team won the Henlopen North division Oct. 30, with a 1-0 victory over Caesar Rodney at Milford’s Briggs Stadium.

The Vikings tied the Riders 3-3 Oct. 3, to set up the winner-take-all Northern Division title game. The 1-0 victory sets up the rematch between Sussex Academy and the Cape squad Saturday, Nov. 2, at Cape Henlopen’s Legends Stadium. The Seahawks previously defeated the Vikings 2-0 Oct. 8 at Sussex Academy.

The Oct. 30 match was a battle of divisional rivals; each team had chances on goals in the game.

Cape narrowly outshot CR 11-10. Cape’s Jake Hutchison and CR’s Grant Parsons each made 10 stops in goal.

Cape finally found the back of the twine at the 28-minute mark when junior Lawson Whaley delivered a 40-yard free kick that found the left shoulder of Evan Burris, who pushed it into the cage past Parsons.

“Lawson’s kick was perfect,” said Burris, who has nine goals on the season. “He put it in the right spot and it made it easy to put it in the goal.”

It was Whaley’s first assist this year.

“The boys executed the game plan flawlessly,” said Cape head coach Patrick Kilby. “Our training sessions are driven by film. We noticed the trend in that we lacked defensive recovery with purpose. We got numbers behind the ball, and the player who lost the ball for us knew he had to recover into the space behind the ball and trust that his teammate would become first defender. We made angle runs back into the defensive third to provide layers so that we could defend as a unit. We then attacked as a unit and were organized in our attack so that we could be organized when we were covered defensively.”

The Henlopen Conference Championship game will kick off at 7 p.m.