Resilient Cape boys pounce on Poly 58-52

Just five nights removed from an ugly brawl that could've derailed its season, a shorthanded Cape Henlopen boys' basketball team found redemption with a come-from-behind 58-52 victory at Polytech Jan. 28 in Woodside. 

Senior guard Kris Rushin scored a career-high 23 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and dished out five assists for the Vikings, who were down three starters after last week’s bench-clearing fight with Sussex Tech. Cape leaned heavily on junior varsity call-ups against a full-strength Poly squad that had nearly upended the Vikings in a December matchup. The young guns delivered productive minutes for Cape, which climbed out of an eight-point third-quarter hole and outscored the Panthers 10-2 over the final four minutes to earn a win that could ultimately help the Vikings reach postseason play.

Rushin was well aware of the game’s importance.

“We needed the win,” said Rushin, who kept his team in the game by scoring 11 straight Cape points midway through the contest. “We couldn’t afford a loss to Polytech, and we felt like we could win from the start. We came out with energy. We got down two [late] and weren’t trying to take an L, so we had to bring the energy back up.”

The Vikings got 14 points, six boards and four three-pointers from senior sharpshooter Collin Mallet, who knocked down two huge threes in the fourth quarter. His final long-ball, a right-corner bomb on a feed from Rushin, tied the game at 48 with 5:26 left in the final frame. After a Polytech bucket, freshman guard Drew Zimmerman sank a five-footer in the lane and Rushin followed with a runner to put Cape in front. Polytech closed to 53-52 at the 34-second mark, but Rushin found sophomore forward Sean Wick for a lay-in on the Vikings' next possession. Wick added a free throw 10 ticks later to ice the game, and Zimmerman sank two more in the final seconds.

“We hustled, rebounded and controlled the ball [down the stretch],” said Wick, who got the start and made the most of his first varsity minutes.

Cape jumped out to a 7-0 lead and maintained an edge until late in the second quarter, when the Panthers edged ahead behind the long-range shooting of freshman guard Xavier Brewington. Down a bucket at the break, the Vikings went cold to start the second half, falling behind 36-28 on a lay-in from Polytech forward Christian Cote with 4:15 remaining in the third. Rushin came to the rescue from there, pouring in nine points over the next three minutes by attacking the rim again and again. After Rushin knotted the score at 39 on a pair of free throws, Brewington converted a three-point play and Mallet answered with a trifecta with 39 seconds left in the period. Junior wing Nicholas Alfaro then powered in an and-one of his own to put the Panthers in front 45-42 going into the fourth. 

Zimmerman enjoyed a career night for Cape (5-7, 4-6 Henlopen North), scoring 10 points and collecting five rebounds from the lead guard spot. Wick more than held his own under the boards, notching five points and seven rebounds, while junior guard Nate Sivels added four points and two assists. Sophomore guard Zimere Bolden, playing his first game at the varsity level, rounded out the scoring with two points.

Head coach Shemik Thompson commended his youngsters for stepping up to the challenge.

“We had guys who came up to varsity for the first time – on two days’ notice and with two days of practice – and they just played extremely well for us,” Thompson said. “They gave us valuable minutes.”

Thompson was pleased with his team’s energy and effort.

“All our guys played a really solid game today all the way around,” Thompson said. “I was telling them that basketball is a complex game, but sometimes it can come down to matchups and willpower. We knew we would get some mismatches and we we wanted to exploit those, but more than anything, we played hard throughout the entirety of the game.”

Polytech (5-9, 3-8 Henlopen North) got 26 points, seven boards and five three-pointers from Brewington, and 14 points from Cote.

The Vikings shot a solid, if not spectacular, 42 percent from the floor, eclipsing the 40 percent mark for the second consecutive game, and held the Panthers to a 31 percent night. Cape also won the battle of the boards, out-rebounding Polytech 34-29, and committed just 12 turnovers.

The Vikings will host North Caroline of Maryland’s Bayside Conference Saturday, Feb. 1. The opening tip is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Cape will have leading scorer Ja’Vaughn Burton and forward Dylan Fannin back in its rotation.