Bits and Pieces 2 

 On the very first day of football season, my number one pick let me down. The Christiana Vikings wilted in the heat against St. Marks (who didn't begin the season in our top ten).
 The Vikings dominated the game for three quarters, but were obviously not prepared for the heat of that day's contest.
 I saw the same thing happen to Laurel in their game against Archmere Academy. When the Bulldogs came out of the locker room for the second half, there wasn't a single player who hustled back onto the field. In the first quarter of that game, Laurel looked like a clear winner.
  The Caesar Rodney-Newark football should be a war in Newark this evening. The Riders notched the only loss on Newark's record last year. Newark is back at number one in the rankings this week. 
  An early, but potentially exciting field hockey game is on tap this afternoon. The defending state champion Warriors of Wilmington Christian travel to the home of perennially tough Hillers of Tower Hill who didn't reach the final tournament game last year for the first time in 12 years. The game is Tower Hill's first, while the Warriors go in 2-0 having scored 17 goals so far. Danae Chambers has scored seven of them, Jenna Schwind five, and Sarah Raniszewski four.
  I'm not so sure why we've decided to post some underdog picks in our top ten lists this year because it opens us up to extra criticism, but, that's ok. Check the boy's soccer top ten right now and see the Hodgson Vo-Tech Silver Eagles in at number 7. This might seem a bit of a surprise, but they beat our current number three team, Newark, 3-0 in a scrimmage recently, and are now 2-0 on the young season. 
 Hodgson has also developed a boy's cross country champion hopeful in Andrew Scarpitti. He has been running the best Division 2 times so far this year.
  On this coming Tuesday's television show, we are showing highlights of the Wilmington College-Goldey Beacom College volleyball match. It's a growing local rivalry that features many local athletes who excelled at the high school level in this area. The Wildcat team features Michelle Hoosty from Newark, Lynn Pabian from Padua,Co-Captain Riyan Sullivan from William Penn, Co-Captain Jen Pruitt from Christiana, Rachael Potter from McKean, Courtney Sley, Aleesa DegliObizzi, and Erin McNulty from the championship St. Mark's teams of the past two years, and Candice Bowman and Teri Mangini from Glasgow.
  The Goldey-Beacom Lightning have a few Dickinson High graduates from the Gerry Szabo recruiting days; Melissa Sabol, Gabrielle Pownall-Brown, Loria Bafundo (recently transferred from Florida International) Stacey Lumb from Christiana, Melissa Miller from Hodgson, Michelle Tobiason from St. Elizabeth, and Julie Parseghian from Cape Henlopen.
  Some top football performances from last weekend included St. Elizabeth's Jeff Fletcher's three touchdown 122 yard rushing day; Delcastle's Joe Barone rushed for 188 yards and two td's against Sussex Tech spoiling Bill Collick's Raven head coaching debut;Andre Cannon rushed for 110 yards for Woodbridge in their opening win over Parkside, Md.;Tower Hill's Rob Randolph scored three times against Rising Sun; Middletown's R.C. Cleveland scored three times in the Cavalier rout of Charter; Kerry Miles rushed for 172 yards for Mt. Pleasant in the Green Knights win over district rival Brandywine John Coleman had 158; Brandywine's Ivan Schmidt caught five passes for 156 yards in the same game.
  The William Penn Colonials aren't particularly known as a cross country power, they prefer to excel at the more "rugged" sports such as football and wrestling. This point might disturb them just a little however. During a recent meet against Salesianum and Ursuline, Colleen Taylor ran a time that was the second best for the Colonial boys. Taylor is the reigning division two champ for the Raiders.
  The St. Marks field hockey team lit up Dickinson for 14 goals in a game last week. Michelle Huynh-Ba scored a hat trick in the first eight minutes of the game.
  Defending Division One individual cross country champion Jill Hajec broke the Schutte Park course record during Caesar Rodney's 18-41 win over Dover. Hajec's time was 21:19.
  The Brandywine volleyball team pulled off an upset of William Penn in game scoresd of 15-10 and 15-5. The loss dropped the preseason Flight A favorite to 1-2 as the Bulldogs upped their mark to 2-0. With Glasgow and A.I. duPont looking shaky and Newark as of now untested, the Bulldog win has to boost their confidence greatly.
  Leslie Simon scored four goals in a field hockey game for Friends against A.I. duPont in a Quaker 6-0 shutout.
  Friday night football games: Tower Hill vs Charter; Middletown vs Bel Air, Md.; Caravel vs Laurel; A.I. duPont vs Tatnall; Cape Henlopen vs Archmere; Woodbridge vs Milford; Sussex Central vs Indian River, and Lake Forest vs Polytech. 
 Saturdays football games: Brandywine vs Salesianum; Delcastle vs Howard; St. Marks vs Concord; St. Elizabeth vs Dickinson; Mt. Pleasant vs Smyrna; Hodgson vs Sussex Tech, Christiana vs Dover; William Penn vs West Chester East; Delmar vs Victor Cullen, Seaford vs Friends; St. Andrew's vs Maret.

Marshal Manlove