Until that happens there really isn’t a whole lot to talk about here and I’m not one to write just for the sake of doing so. And since we aren’t paid here there isn’t a lot of pressure to come up with stuff every week or so.

I did happen to catch a little high school volleyball action over at Wilmington College this week. There is a ten team league that is running for five weeks which includes St. Marks, Concord, Sanford, Hodgson, McKean, A.I. duPont, William Penn, Caravel, Charter, and one other school that I can’t recall.

Most of the players on these teams are really just getting some extra exposure and playing time. Of course, they can’t play under their regular coaches because of those stupid rules that won’t allow coaches to actually TEACH their kids unless it’s during a certain specified time period.

Nonetheless, these pre-pre-seasons are the building blocks of successful programs. The St. Marks team was comprised of players who are at the junior varsity level hoping to stand out and make an impression for the upcoming season and most of the teams were like that. First-team all-stater Laura Colosi was helping coach the Spartans summer team. Colosi will be headed to Virginia Tech in the middle of August, but says that she will most likely not participate in a varsity sport down there.

The Hodgson Vo-Tech team had most of what will be their varsity team on the floor. Danielle Austin is a solid setter for the Silver Eagles who could perhaps make a run at a Flight B title this year with the increased efforts. The Lady Eagle programs at Hodgson have truly begun to come of their own buoyed and motivated by the wrestling team’s success during the past five years. Winning breeds more winning and the girl’s programs look to earn some of the accolades that the boys have recently.

The Sanford Warrior team was made up of all freshmen. For the upcoming season The Warriors will have an entirely new coaching staff  with Traci Den Hoed taking the reins of the varsity team. Traci comes to Sanford from the Delaware Juniors program and her daughter Leah was the setter for St. Marks who earned The News Journal’s Player of the Year award last year.

Also seen coaching at the Wilmington College gym was Caravel Academy graduate and UD basketball player Kristin Mills. Brenna MacDonald who played with Mills when they attended CA, was assisting Kristin. Bonnie Mills, Kristin’s sister, is on this summer league team as well.

A young lady who appears clearly destined to join full-time coaching ranks at some point in the future is 2001 McKean graduate Liz Lind. Widener bound in the Fall, Lind is a take charge person who was obviously respected by her team. Of all of the younger coaches on the floor, Lind’s presence as a coach stuck out the most. Steve Lenderman, who is the Wilmington College head coach, coached Lind as a freshman at McKean and said that she was helping to lead her team even back in those good old days.

There was a huge fast-pitch softball tournament recently as well. Sixty-two teams from all over creation attended the DASA Invitational Fast-Pitch Tournament run by John Travis. While out doing some filming for Ace Reporter Dana Anderson, who plays for the TLC Terrors out of Boothwyn, PA, I took a look at the roster of one of the Orange Crush teams that Travis put together to play in this thing. It was then necessary to go watch a game or two.

If you’re a local softball fan, you’ll understand why this team needed to be seen. There were six different pitchers that other teams needed to contend with at any point in time all being coached by Jenny Asbury, a young woman who girls seem to love to play for.

First, there was Dana Travis, a former News Journal Player of the Year and current St. Joe’s pitcher. Then Asbury could have turned to her shortstop for a little relief because over there was Indian River’s Cara Deldeo. Over at first base was Brandywine’s Jenn Joseph who was a first-team all-state pitcher who will be playing for Delaware next year. At second base was Padua’s Gina Madeline. Indian River’s Brandi Reed was there to pitch and catch, and from Cape Henlopen was Maggie Lingo.

Also on this team was Megan Richardson, the Delaware Sports 2001 softball Player of the Year, in center, Melissa Zebley from William Penn and Holy Family College in right, Sandy Samsel from Sussex Central and Goldey-Beacom in left, Padua graduate and Seton Hall University rising Freshman Laura Taylor behind the plate, and Laura Streets from Newark High and the U of DE over at third.

So the game I watch features Lingo on the mound against a team called the STPA Ponies (from PA). The Ponies jumped out to a 5-0 lead during a rough first inning for Lingo. Brandi Reed took over the pitching duties in the second inning and she, in my book, is the number-six pitcher on the depth chart.

The Crush started to make a comeback. Sandy Samsel hit such a shot of a homerun that her name was immediately changed to Sandy Sosa. This game was being played at the Delcastle complex where the fields have fences that are 275 feet away and her shot was a one-bouncer to the fence.

Everyone started hitting the ball for the Crush; Taylor, Deldeo, Madeline, etc., and the Crush tied the game in the sixth and eventually went into extra innings as Reed shut down the Ponies. The Crush laid the smack down in their half of the eighth capped off by a Deldeo bomb that cleared the loaded bases that became loaded when the Ponies intentionally walked Sandy Sosa to get to Deldeo. A 12-6 final for the Crush who then headed off for the championship game.

Two other Crush teams featured more of our local talent. The 16 and under team was the one that won the DASA state championship and Diamond State Games gold medal back in June. A core of Caravel Academy players that included Jackie Homiak, Erin McGlynn, Erin Bilbrough and Alexis Niggebrugge took on Asbury’s Crush team prior to the one just mentioned and only lost a 2-0 decision.

The other Crush team was the 18 and under team that won the ASA State and DSG gold medal in June also. That team featured Jaleah Brown from Glasgow/Wilmington College, Kim Camponelli from William Penn/Western Maryland, former all-staters from Delcastle high Jackie Miller and Melissa Perez, Angie Miller, Laura Colosi, and Kim Joyce from the World Championship team and more. This was the team that bowed out earliest, so this tournament was heavy hitting and may grow to 80 teams for next year.

Behind the scenes here at Delaware Sports in mostly quiet as we are gearing up and resting up for the next scholastic sports year. It appears as though we will begin to concentrate a bit more on the college sports teams on the TV show during the regular season and limit our high school coverage a bit to perhaps just the state tournament games. There are a variety of factors that are behind this decision, none of which are earth shattering enough to mention here.

We have made one last pitch to a local publisher about our newspaper that we would truly like to see re-launch and succeed. The publisher, who will be nameless for now, is someone whose opinion I trust in this business. If he doesn’t think that it can fly, it won’t fly any further until such time that it can.

On the Diamond State Games front are two new events waiting in the wings, tennis and paintball. There are still a series of things that need to happen before we state firmly that will be a year two, but we are proceeding forward until that time. Leading the tennis committee at this point is Bill Bushey, the father of our reigning state girl’s single’s champion Katherine from St. Marks. Heading our Paintball competition will be Mike Lashbrook who operates a Paintball field and is the proprietor of Newport Paintball and Skate in Newport. Paintball is now the fourth largest "extreme" sport in terms of participation recently passing snowboarding.

This website will still continue on its current path. During the school year we are now averaging 20,000 page views per day which is well beyond my expectations from Day One. My own personal contributions will be leaning more towards the female sports side, so be warned in advance of that. Should you, or someone that you know, wish to become part of the writing staff here and be the male sports voice, just drop me a note and we can begin the process. We also would like to add to our student reporter base and have more schools represented by actual students of the schools, so write me for that as well.

The Delaware Sports Top 25 will make its website debut in September. This was a feature of our newspaper that had a lot of positive feedback, so it will make its return here. This list will combine all of the teams from College and High School along with all of the sports. So on this list could be the U of DE Football team, the Newark High Football team, and the Tower Hill Field Hockey team all at the same time. The teams will be ranked on their strength of schedule, the staff’s combined subjective rankings, and the results of reader polls. Strength of schedule and team records will hold the most weight. Teams from outside the College and High School ranks will also be considered.

If you are someone who has inside knowledge and would like to share some information with us to help us be a bit more in touch, just write. We’ll be back soon.