Matside Muppets bring a softer side to sometimes harsh sport

Matside Muppets - Cape wrestling’s 38-25 win over Caesar Rodney Jan. 31 followed 20 middle school matches and another dozen JV matches. That’s enough to turn fans bleary eyed and in search of bleacher cushions on Amazon. But the softer side of the hard rubber mat occurs outside the circle. Who cheers for the cheerleaders? Wrestling managers Jocelyn Fisher and Madison Elphick are so smart and talented. They are also members of the competition cheerleading team that recently competed in Texas. They shoot video, enter data on an iPad, keep score and clean the mats, whatever it takes. The only way to turn them grumpy is by ignoring them - impossible - but to use a current hip phrase, "We appreciate, you girls.” And Emily Groll singing the national anthem before the match with a voice so sweet and so, so good. Everyone slows down for an interlude of reflective introspection before yelling, “He’s stalling, ref!” “What’s with the locking hands?” “You need to go back to referee school.” And that was during the middle school match.

Boom Shakalaka - The Cape girls’ junior varsity basketball team ran its record to 8-0 Jan. 30, with a 59-5 home win over Sussex Tech. Cape’s average margin of victory is 31 points. No team has scored over 20 against them. What knocked me off the corner of my couch was a text from Dan Cook reporting a halftime score of 47-0. I’m glad I wasn’t there covering the game. I know fans would have been looking at me wondering, “What is he going to write about this?” It’s like being trapped in a box secured by packing tape. There is no easy way out. An oddity to me is that the JV Ravens have an overall record of 4-5. There are four teams on their schedule that canceled the JV season, including Milford, Polytech, Delmar and Laurel. Beacon girls’ basketball finished the season 11-0, all wins by double digits, including a 39-2 home win over Millsboro. Sussex Central varsity girls are 0-11; they have only broken the 20-point barrier twice. On Friday, Feb. 2, the Golden Knights play at 1-11 Sussex Academy. The Seahawks can score and have pushed past 40 points several times. The real story of downstate basketball is embedded in all this data. The last downstate team to win a state title was Cape in 1973 with a 33-31 win over Mt. Pleasant. Henlopen Conference teams to reach the finals were Sussex Central in 1995, Seaford in 2003 and 2004, and Cape Henlopen in 2011.

No handle - I’m not talking about my dribble in the open court or identifying myself on CB radio. I’m talking about getting a grasp on the upcoming indoor state track championships, which are held at the Prince George’s Sports Complex in Landover, Md. The Cape boys are solid, can spread over all the events and will pile up big points in the pole vault. They dominated the Henlopen Conference Championships, but what that means when serious depth gets added to the mixture of talent at the state level is impossible to handicap. Just go with the usual suspects, starting with Salesianum with a recent infusion of Catholic sprinters. Padua is crazy good on the girls’ side, and Tatnall is always tough. Not to insert myself into the story, but I was the track coach when Cape won indoor titles in 1984 and 1985, and Tim Bamforth was the coach of the 1993 indoor state championship team. Bamforth sees Cape and Salesianum locked in a two-team battle.  

Opposing positions - The argument for a young athlete to play multiple sports or concentrate on one where you excel in skill and love for the game is reconcilable in an irreconcilable way. Pursue passion where there is no such thing as time wasted. I can go either way in this discussion because there is no right answer. Let’s say you are a lacrosse player spending the winter sitting on the bench of a basketball team. Would your time be better spent outside throwing a lacrosse ball against the wall and catching it with your stick? Skills wise, yes, but the entire team experience would be missed during a once-in-a-lifetime journey. 

Streaming - Spring sports for colleges begin this weekend with a full array of lacrosse games across all divisions. I’ll be tracking scores of teams with locally connected athletes, some I’m related to and most being part of the muppet matrix. ESPN has more stations than a Catholic church, but basically the literati punditry has no knowledge or interest in the non-revenue-generating sports. Live stats on a school website are a great way to follow four games at the same time until the person entering the data takes a nap. Insidelacrosse.com is the best site for tracking the sport at all levels for both men and women. 

Snippets - C.J. Fritchman, a freshman at Salisbury University, is not playing lacrosse this spring, instead electing shoulder surgery. Last March, Fritchman won a state wrestling championship nursing a shoulder that kept popping out. C.J. is a five-sport athlete, including football, wrestling, lacrosse, lifeguard competition and fishing. Millions of football fans find Tony Romo annoying, but wait until next season when Tom Brady becomes part of the lead team at Fox. Remember you heard it here first, unless your remote is on mute. “Ligament” was the word of the ’90s. Now it’s “labrum.” Whatever happened to the “gastrocnemius?” Go on now, git!