Ramblings 58

 March 14, 2002

by Marshal Manlove
Editor

The high school winter sports season is complete with the exception of some national events that some of our better athletes will attend. So I thought I would look back at some of the highlights of the winter from my vantage and viewpoints.

Working backwards and thus beginning with the basketball finals, I was hoping for closer final games in both the boy’s and girl’s tournaments.
The Silver Eagles of Hodgson proved not to be a match for the much taller Warriors of Sanford. Wil Sheridan was dominant in the game and the other 6’9" Warrior Joe Dyson’s ten points were bigger than they appeared at first glance. I thought that Dyson’s lack of experience could have been exploited by the athletic prowess of Malcom Tiller, Taurean Temple, and LaDaye Johnson, but instead of trying that approach they chose the long range attack, which just didn’t work. When you’re hot you’re hot and when you’re not you’re not.

The best part of the final game was when Taurean Temple stole a ball and drove down the length of the floor only to have his shot hammered away by Sheridan. The subsequent crash of the two bodies sent Temple smashing into the camerawoman and left him sprawled out in pain underneath the side bleachers.
Well as people were attending to Temple up walks Hodgson Athletic Director and wrestling Coach Jerry Lamey. Jerry isn’t a guy who babies athletes in the middle of a competition, especially one with championship implications. So after telling Temple he was OK it wasn’t long before he was back in the game. No pain no gain!
The thing that bothered me most about the basketball games though was that there were a lot of people wearing hats while the National Anthem was playing. Not just absent mindedness was at work either; they were blatant displays of disrespect for our flag. Twice I saw a family member attempt to get the violator to remove the hat and both times they were unsuccessful.

So let us get something straight, if there are people dying in our war for you, you will take off your hat at the playing of the National Anthem. It is the VERY least that you can do to recognize the FACT that our soldiers are fighting for our continued freedom and security.

I don’t even want to hear what anyone THINKS the flag represents now, or at any other time in history. It very simply represents FREEDOM, and UNITY, the former is what we all have in this country and the latter is what we need to continue to strive for.

Violators of this simple AMERICAN custom are not friends of mine. And if you don’t like our flag, get out of our country.

The girl’s game promised some excitement if you were thinking about the regular season game between the Spartans and the Tigers. The Tigers erased a 22-point deficit in game one and I couldn’t help think that the same thing could happen again, only because anything can happen.
But the Spartans were the real deal all year long and didn’t lose a game in state. I took some heat last night on the radio show, where the Spartans visited, for not picking them #1 from day one. But the original pick I made of Glasgow was pretty reasonable considering I made it before I found out that Markeda Hollingsworth had transferred to A.I. duPont. Hollingsworth’s presence on the Tigers was what pushed the Tigers up to the next level and had she stayed at Glasgow, it would have been the Dragons and the Spartans in the final.
With the exception of Kristen Sullivan, who will graduate, the entire Spartan roster could be the same next year. The Spartan’s success was partially due to their deep bench and it will only be deeper next year.
Christine Armstrong was a co-captain as a junior and she is a natural leader as you can witness watching the team interact. She is also a solid all-around player.
Andrea Hochstuhl, who is currently a sophomore, would fill Sullivan’s position next year. Andrea is about 6’ tall and already fits in well to John Fiorelli’s scheme.
A caller to the radio show with the Spartans asked a great question. "With Bobby Knight being a ten as a tough coach, and a not so tough coach being a one, where would you rank Fio?" The girl’s in the studio at the time were silent, perhaps knowing that John was listening. The girls peering into the studio, however, all held up nine fingers. He seems rather mellow most of the time though and I have yet to see a chair fly onto the court.

I think the indoor track championships are my favorite to cover during the winter season. It’s because the event is eight hours long and kids are being crowned champions all day long. That makes for good TV highlights with all the extra emotion.
The Glasgow Dragon girl’s team had about three members on it when I did my original rankings in December. Credit new head coach Alan Duncan for pulling off a state championship after putting together a team that won two sprint relay events without Kamilah Salaam racing. Salaam’s presence on the team didn’t hurt Duncan’s chances of scoring some points in the meet. Her 40 gathered after her four wins were more than most teams at the Field House.
The McKean Highlanders used 40 points of their own as result of four individual championships to boost them to a second place finish. Cetera Bunche was overjoyed at the Highlanders finish and didn’t seem to want to let go of the trophy. McKean didn’t enter a 4x800-relay team even though they had the fastest qualifying time coming in to the meet.
Mandy Stille won the three jumping events and with extra training over the summer could be a serious threat to three state records. I think her best shot is in the high jump, which one can tell she doesn’t even practice as much as the long and triple jumps. Her 5’ 4" jump is only about 4 inches off the record and her 6’0 frame should easily be good for a 5’10 – 6’ jump with proper guidance.

Dover’s Jason Lilly became the first Senator to visit us at the radio show. He is a good kid and an even better athlete who runs effortlessly yet powerfully. He was the other four-gold medal winner, which helped Dover take the championship that everyone pretty much expected them to take. Surprisingly, Lilly had not received any offers to run track at a college or a university. He then gladly took the offer from Boston College to play football and, perhaps, he can run track there as well.

William Penn’s William Brown was a semi-surprise winner in the shot put finishing ahead of the reigning state champion and teammate Carlton Rose. Brown’s toss of 59-1 was nearly five feet better than his qualifying throw.

Three of the four long distance races (1600 and 3200) were decided by sprints in the last 50 meters. What could be worse for a runner who decides to take up long distance running, because he or she doesn’t sprint very well, to have to sprint for gold after running all that way?
Cetera Bunche won her 1600 in that fashion nipping the freshman from Tower Hill, Lisa Klein.
Ryan Hamill, from Salesianum, won both the 1600 and 3200 with sprints. It was Klein in the girl’s 3200 who ran to a comfortable victory for her first Delaware Indoor Championship.

The most impressive performance of the meet was Smryna’s Randolph Faulkner breaking his own state record in the pole vault. It is better to say that he shattered it though since the one he set last year was 13-8.25 and now it’s 14-6. Faulkner now has one more thing to prove in the outdoor season. He DQ’d at Polytech last year and did not place. Now that we know he can jump 14-6 indoors and nearly 14-9, the outdoor record is in jeopardy this summer.

We’ve been over the wrestling and swimming so I’ll refrain from repeating myself there and move now to the All-Heart Awards presented this past Saturday.
First, just in case anyone was curious, the award winners were submitted in a general press release to the all publications and radio stations around the area. But since we are the mighty Delaware Sports, some people didn’t want to publish the release and credit the winners for what we credited them for. That is one reason why they suck and we don’t.

Anyway, the seven winners of the third All-Heart Team are listed and pictured in that section of the website. I like having the nominators make the speech and handing the awards to the winners. More good emotion to capture that way.
The best "speech" came from Ursuline Academy graduate Kristin McGough as she spoke of Katie Orga, one of our favorites here at Delaware Sports. McGough simply has a way with words that makes things she writes stand out above most other samples that I have seen. Watching her then say those words and get choked up while saying them sort of choked me up in the corner where I was standing.

Highlights of the All-Heart Team presentations will air sometime soon on the TV show. Check in the "Whats on This Week" section to see when.

Speaking of seeing Delaware Sports, we’re pretty close to entering the Charter Cable system and airing Delaware Sports in the Middletown-Odessa-Townsend area, which isn’t covered by Comcast. This particular system also reaches into Cecil County Maryland and I think down into Smryna a little bit as well. Sometime next week we will sign the deal and begin airing a couple weeks after that.

The Chester and Delaware County plans are currently stalled due to a simple lack of funds. I’m trying almost desperately to hunt down a sponsor for those shows, but I’m having a hard time.

I will wait a little bit before presenting our Spring preview. I’ve been copied rather frequently in the recent past so I’ll let everyone else release theirs before ours come out.

The All-State basketball teams will be announced on the 16^th. I’ll come out and tell you who my first-team picks are now. They very well could be way different from the final list, but that’s ok, you’ll know, based on who I saw play all year anyway, who mine were.

For the boys it was, in no particular order Wil Sheridan from Sanford, Kyle Stem from Salesianum, Taurean Temple from Hodgson, Lamont Davis from Newark, and Earl Miller from Sanford.
For the girls my first-team picks were Tyresa Smith from Polytech, Colleen Armstrong form St. Marks, Davineia Payne from Caravel, Markeda Hollingsworth from A.I. duPont, and Kristin Hines from Glasgow. If you didn’t see your name perhaps you were chosen on one of the other teams. Keep in mind that voters are only supposed to vote for players they have seen during the year and up through the semifinal round of the state tournament.

Feel free to contact me to discuss profiling an athlete in our new section "Special Profiles." I will write an actual profile like the one on the front page of the website if the story is good.

Ok, time for bed. I’ll try to back with new stuff next week.

Marshal Manlove