Some of the original athletes in the contest were entered by nomination. The rest were entered by us here at Delaware Sports to be sure that no one has been left out (to the best of our ability anyway.)

The winners are chosen by votes cast on the website (not the duplicate ones), through our television polls, and finally through our own personal observations and research.

So, yes, some of this contest is a popularity contest, but only a part. The winners will be ones that most people will be able to strongly defend as worthy of our honor.

Some of the criteria that I personally take into consideration when casting my own votes include a statistical analysis and strength of schedule of teams or athletes that compete against the winner during the year.

A Delaware Sports Athlete of the Year also will usually play one than more varsity high school sport during the year or be competitive nearly year round at his or her specialty.

Finally, a Delaware Sports Athlete of the Year has to be a bit humble and possess a better than average (and even beyond) measure of character.

The winners won’t be announced right away because we prefer to surprise them in prize patrol type fashion. It is the coolest thing that we do all year and is what I look forward to the most.

This year we will again honor an athlete from downstate also. Since our show is still new in Kent and Sussex Counties, downstate athletes don’t get as many opportunities to be exposed to the fans of the New Castle County show, so we just created the third award.

I will remember this past state track championships for those stupid little bugs that terrorized athletes and spectators alike all Saturday long. Despite a fairly comfortable day temperature wise, creatures that we used to call "no-see-ums" back in my old hometown of Towaco, N.J. wreaked havoc.

There were a few individual performances that stood out at the meet. Ursuline’s Colleen Taylor and Salesianum’s Charlie Diehlman did what only three other athletes had done at a state meet during the past 20 years- win the 800, 1600 and 3200-meter-run events. Padua’s Kirsten Walker was the only girl prior to Taylor to accomplish the task back in 1990. Orlando Walker captured all three for Delcastle in 1985 and Scott Walden did the same for Tower Hill in 1994.

Taylor also became the only girl to win the 1600-meter state championship four times and she ends her outdoor career with 12 state championships. Colleen’s older sister Tricia also won four state championships in one event, the 400 meter run. Both will run for Villanova next year.

Glasgow’s Kamilah Salaam pulled her season altogether for a four-gold-medal performance. Salaam was part of the Dragons 4x100 relay championship and won both D1 hurdling events. But her big win was in the 200-meter dash against Christiana’s Danielle Bailey in a time of 24.61 which was the fastest 200 time in a state meet in 12 years. Salaam is still just a sophomore.

The Ursuline rule over Division II came to a screeching halt when they finished in third place. The Lake Forest Spartans are the new champs and the Hodgson Vo-Tech Silver Eagles finished in second.

But why are we going through a "Meet of Champions" after already crowning champions at the state meet? Now, the winners of each of the races might not actually become members of the All-State team. There were enough scratches from the MOC to warrant concern about filling the all-state lists with these winners of the next set of races.

I could see this race happening in a state like California, which has over 7000 high schools. The state has a series of championships and it would impractical to try to have all of the schools meeting with everyone who has reached qualifying times or marks in one meet. There is an example where the winners of district events can meet in an MOC type of final event of the year. Delaware only has a little over 40 high schools and for some reason in track we have the individuals separated into two divisions. In this case it doesn’t make much sense. We should have all of our athletes who qualify for the states compete against each other in the state meet. If there is a need to figure out which small school or large school has won their normally set divisional championships, then figure out the points based on what the individual results were.

Salesianum lost the 4 x 800 relay to Glasgow in the MOC tonight. Charlie Diehlman only entered that race and none of the other three races that he was state champion in, so now despite being the state champion in four events and running the best time of the year in the 800 meters, he is not on the all-state team.

Salesianum did not stay to accept their second place medal for the 4 x 800. As much as I am actually on their side about the MOC being presented the wrong way, they should have stayed for their awards.
Seaford’s Reagan Hasting broke the state record in the pole vault with a vault of 9-8 which gives supporters of this tournament reason to crow a little. She broke the record set just this past weekend by Christiana’s Rachel Alley who jumped 9-7 to win the D1 state championship (but she won’t make the all-state team either.)

The baseball tournament still doesn’t work but yet here we go with another single elimination tournament. This subject gets talked about every year also so I won’t rehash it anymore than to say that there should only be eight teams (of the 40) and then have a double elimination or a series of three games to advance to the next round of the tournament.

I don’t know how Cape Henlopen earned only the second seed after finishing 18-0 including a win over the number one seeded Bucs of Caravel who finished 14-4. It would take pulling out all of results of each team and the final winning percentages of each team that they played all year to figure out what happened.

It was a great year for the Henlopen Softball Conference for sure though. Seven teams made the tournament; Cape, Caesar Rodney, Delmar, Smyrna, Milford, Indian River, and Sussex Central. Therein basically lies the answer to the question of how Cape only earned a #2 seed. Since these teams had to beat each other up all year long, it would figure that their winning percentages would be lower.

Katherine Bushey of St. Marks won her third consecutive state tennis championship at number one singles. She defeated Ursuline’s Lauren Rothe 6-0, 6-1 in the finals. Bushey only lost five games all year, two in this state tournament. She was so completely dominating that Rothe sort of even celebrated when she won the one game.
St. Andrews cruised to the team title winning 4 of the 5 individual titles to win their second straight title. Chloe Taft and Jane Parshall won first doubles, Dodie Press and Carter Brady took second doubles, and Santhi Voora and Jenny Sanders won second and third singles respectively. Ursuline finished in second place overall.

Special thanks to those of you who have taken some time to say nice things about what we doing here at Delaware Sports. Sometimes just one of those can keep the fire lit under us to keep working harder.