DIAA girls’ lacrosse semis to be played at Delaware State

Delaware State lacrosse - Jeff Savage, a former athletic director and softball coach at Delaware State University, sent me the online link from Hornet News about the women’s lacrosse team bus being stopped and illegally searched by the Georgia State Police for drugs and contraband. Jeff wondered why this wasn’t a national story. The story was slow to bust loose, in part because it just seemed so incredibly stupid that it couldn’t possibly be true. The University of Georgia Bulldogs won the NCAA National Championship of football last season; there are Georgia Tech, Georgia Southern and Georgia State. The Georgia higher education system is composed of 128 colleges and universities. Pulling over team buses from out of state simply can’t be standard procedure. The semifinals and finals of the DIAA girls’ lacrosse state tournament will be held at Delaware State University Tuesday, May 24 and Thursday, May 26. Sussex Academy and Cape Henlopen in opposite brackets are expected to be in action for the semifinal doubleheader on the Delaware State University campus. 

Track is back - High school track in Delaware is solidly back, and the athletes share something with another solidly back high school sport, which is wrestling. The University of Delaware offers no opportunities for men in either sport, while Delaware State offers opportunities in track, but  the teams are small and you better be fast. The Delaware State women’s 4-by-200 team of Khaliyah White, Lakendra Harpe (Sussex Tech), Dianna Koger and Asaliyah Robinson ran 1:39:55 April 30 at the Penn Relays to win the College Women’s Championship of America.  

Stool pigeon - I elevated my blue field chair game on Friday at the Henlopen Conference Track Championships at Lake Forest HIgh School, substituting a green wooden barstool to make liftoff easier. Track is my Luigi’s Wheelhouse, but no way I’m spending four hours on my feet  with a heavy camera around my neck. Before the seeded section of the men’s 800 meters, as I was chatting up some throwbacks along the fence, a fan screamed that my stupid stool was sitting in lane three. “Why don’t you come out and  move it instead of wasting valuable time confusing me?” I said. “Is there some rule that I’m the only guy who can remove obstructions from the track?” The starter snatched the stool, moved it into the infield and the race was run. And the best part – I got a grandpa waiver; no one lectured me because in that world they actually know who I am and help me out, like I've been helping out in that sport since 1976.

Snippets -Yellow cards were flying like stale peeps from the Easter basket last Friday on Barley Mill Road. Sussex Academy girls’ lacrosse defeated Tatnall 20-16. Onsite reporters told me even a grandma was tossed like pizza crust at the golden retriever and told to doodle on down the road and not return without cappuccino for everyone. Cape boys’ lacrosse won at Smyrna last Friday 22-1 on goals by Mikey Frederick 7, Hank D’Ambrogi 3, Joey Coveleski 3, Luke Burton, Jack Schell and Jahden Cannon each with 2, and CJ Fritchman, Burke Healy, John Huss and Zack Clausius each with 1. During a long night at the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame banquet, I was the last of nine speakers. I led off with “In the interest of time, I decided not to thank anyone.” And then I was off into funny story land; I recounted my first year in Lewes when a women told me, ”If you’re not from here, you’ll never be considered to be from here,” and I added “Forty-seven years later, three generations of teachers totaling 120 years, and a Fred-connected relative on 40 state championship teams – and so where am I from now?” Saturday it was the Dave Robinson celebration of life service at Bethel on Fourth Street, and my Lewes friend of 47 years Bill Collick sang Dave back home with “The Hymn of Promise”: “In our end is our beginning. In our time, infinity. In our doubt, there is believing. In our life, eternity. In our death, a resurrection. At the last, a victory. Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.” Bill said, “Dave and I crossed paths at the beginning of desegregation, seventh grade, and from the very beginning, that guy reflected on the possibilities that awaited each one of us! Later on, I began to realize his faith, and his faith for what could be, and his faith reminded me of my mother and grandmother's daily faith as I was growing up.” Church is over; go on now, git!