Bits and Pieces 44

 October 21, 2001

The biggest upset of the cross country season happened Friday as Brandywine’s Jessica Leitsch finished ahead of Tatnall’s Meredith Lambert at the Bellevue Invitational. Lambert’s time was a full minute slower than her course record time at Bellevue a year ago. Leitsch finished seven seconds ahead of the star Hornet in 19:13 at the same course where the state championship will be held in just a few weeks.

Lambert was a recent guest on my radio show and she did mention Leitsch’s name as one of the three in-state competitors to keep an eye on. The others were state champions Jenn Kutney from Brandywine and Jill Hajec from Caesar Rodney. With decent weather come state championship time I would not want to be in Lambert’s division trying to capture an individual state title. This is one motivated and driven young athlete who will only use this second place finish to take the next step into the future.

The Brandywine girls won their eighth consecutive Blue Hen Flight A conference championship this week and should only have the Riders of CR as an obstacle for a team state championship. The Riders placed Hajec (3) Kashante Codner (8) Liz Paul (9) and Kasheka Codner (10) in the top ten at the B.I besting Brandywine by seven points in a decent indicator of how the states may unfold in early November.

The Archmere boy’s team won the team title at the BI in convincing fashion over Salesianum. But the varsity Sals were away and left the JV team behind to finish second overall. That would seem to suggest that Sallies has not only the top division one team in the state, but also the second best division one team in the state.

All of the top five finishers for the boy’s race, won by Archmere’s Pete McBride, were top finishing times at Bellevue this year.

This coming Tuesday, the Catholic Conference volleyball championship will be decided as St. Marks and St. Elizabeth face off for the second time. The Vikings registered the upset over the Spartans just two weeks ago and have lived up to their new number one billing ever since. The Vikes avenged their only loss of the year to Ursuline and completed the season sweep against Archmere just this weekend. This rematch between the top two teams may not be the last one of the year and should be worth the price of admission.

The Charter Force clinched the Flight B crown when the knocked off Dickinson 2-0 to improve to 13-2 overall. The Force was undefeated at 9-0 in conference play at this writing.

If one was to compare two equally talented football running backs and try to assess how to pick one or the other for…lets say…the all state football team, how might that decision be made? I might think that a stellar performance in a large game might be worth a good look. Someone who recently lived up to a player of the year mention was Dover’s Pierre Bowers. The Senators head coach Darwin Manges thought enough of the talented senior to hand him the ball 42 times in the Senators win over Sussex Central Friday night. Bowers responded with 252 yards and five touchdowns that helped the Senators defeat the Golden Knights 34-32. The win avenged last year’s playoff loss to SC when Dover fell 33-3 in a first round contest.

The McKean Highlanders have a special place in my heart for some reason. I truly don’t know why, but they just do and sometimes one has to just roll with that. Trevor and Travis McLaurin are twin Highlander seniors who are standouts for Cordie Greenlea’s team. They are a couple of young men who are not only talented but are fine young representatives for their schools now and for the schools that they choose to attend in the fall. Trevor rushed for over 200 yards for the third week in a row and is now over 1000 for the year after just six games. Travis is arguably the best linebacker in the state and that would include comparing him to the one young man from the Christina school district that most people think is the number one player at that position. The McLaurins make the McKean football team fun to watch all by themselves, so stop by a Highlander game before the season is out to see what I mean.

Another shakeup in the field hockey rankings this week as Cape Henlopen handed Milford their first loss of the year to climb back into the number two position in our top ten. The Vikes were recently shocked by Smyrna, who promptly lost their next game to unranked Sussex Central, and blasted the Bucs for four goals to take control of the Henlopen Conference once again.

The Wilmington Christian Warriors secured their second Diamond State Conference championship this week. The Warriors reached the boy's soccer finals last year and played St. Marks in the championship game and are still undefeated this year. The Glasgow Dragons placed the only blemish on the Warriors mark when they tied last week 1-1. Mamadou Diallo scored for Glasgow to counter the only goal for WCS, which was scored by Randy Eveland.

The soccer game of the week, of course, was the Salesianum-St. Marks game where a new number team was named after the Sals took a 1-0 victory back home with them. The local soccer talk suggested that the Sals have been the team to beat all along, but talk is cheap! Now that the feet have done the talking for Salesianum, they are now the team to beat here in Delaware. Steve Cavalier scored the lone goal for Salesianum to hand St. Marks their first instate loss since 1997. The volleyball team recently suffered that same feeling themselves. Is the momentum changing up here??

The University of Delaware now has Delaware products doing the diving for their men's and women's teams. Mt. Pleasant graduate Adam Keim does the doubles and triples for the men, and Glasgow graduate and junior transfer Julie Van Deusen does the spins and twists for the women. McKean graduate and junior Rick Dressel is pacing the men’s team early this season, and the Stephens sisters, Sandy and Sarah, St. Marks graduates, will help lead the Blue Hen women throughout the year.

The Wilmington College volleyball team has now won eight matches in a row. After starting the season 3-7, the Wildcats are now 13-8 and recently evened their score against their cross-town rivals from Goldey-Beacom in three games. The Wildcats lost to the Lightning in three games during their contest in Pike Creek and stand third in their conference. Bloomfield College is first and Goldey follows them.

There were more conference shakeups that will only serve to confuse me in future columns. For the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 seasons Milford and Seaford will switch conferences. Seaford will drop to the Henlopen South (Division Two) and Milford will jump to the Henlopen North (Division One.) It seems that Seaford had three more students at the recent census, thus the change. For the record, Caesar Rodney has the most of the downstate schools with 1712 students 'compared to Milfords 1004 which now has the most in Division Two.

If I remember correctly, Cape Henlopen will be moving down to Division Two again for Cross Country….or was that Middletown? No, Middletown is Division One….next year when they get to play Newark in football. The Cavaliers replace A.I. duPont in D1 as the Tigers drop back to Flight B (which is Division Two)…ugh. It is Charter that moves up to D1 for cross-country and track…but not football as far as I can tell….arrrrrghhh.

The whole division thing is a mess here in Delaware anyway and it should just be eliminated. We don’t have enough schools to even warrant such a split. There are, I believe, 41 or 42 schools with Varsity level sports now. That is enough for just one division. Particularly in track and cross-country, the division separation is senseless. But, that’s enough for now because nobody listens to what I have to say anyway...except April...who is the smartest of all of us :)

Marshal Manlove