Tatnall’s Meredith Lambert instantly became a favorite to win whatever distance race in which she would compete this Spring. But would it have been just as easy to assume that she might break a state record or two along the way? That’s perhaps not as likely to assume.
This past weekend at the Beltway Classic at Mt. St. Joseph’s in Maryland, Lambert ran an 11:10.23 in the 3200 meter run which was just shy of Monica Witterholt’s state record of 11:09.1 set in 1985. Lambert also recorded a 5:19.1 in the 1600 which is nearly 30 seconds faster than anyone in the state has run so far in this young season. Her 3200 time is over a minute and a half faster than the next closest Delaware runner.

Wrestlers Bobby Shaw and Andrew Donofrio from St. Marks cruised to victories in the inaugural US Open at the Bob Carpenter Center this past weekend. Donofrio worked his semifinal and final competitors like puppets for back-to-back tech falls. He is on his way to Virginia Tech to wrestle and he will have his education paid for as a result. He was someone locally who didn’t have anything else to prove in the HS Senior Nationals, so his choice to stay here was easier than perhaps Shaw’s was.
Bobby hasn’t picked a college yet and a nice showing at the Senior Nationals would have guaranteed even more schools with scholarship offers from which to choose, not that he was without options before the meets.
But fortunately for Shaw, he ended up facing state champions from Colorado and Florida, shutting out both of them, to capture gold. I would think that some more options would open up right away.

Meanwhile, Hodgson’s Jordan Sianni made the trip west to take on the Senior Nationals and finished fourth. After Sianni’s defeat in the state championship finals to Chris Collins of St. Marks, college coaches had more say in Jordan’s future. He needed a strong showing to regain the bargaining power he had before that loss, and with the placing, did just that.

I would expect to see Caravel back in the number one spot before too long. The opening season 7-4 loss to Indian River was an aberration for a few reasons. First, Jackie Homiak was not in top physical condition after a car accident had left her stiff. Second, Lindsay Long, the all-state shortstop was out for a medical reason, and third, the Bucs made nine errors in the game. Since I’ve been around the softball diamonds in Delaware, I haven’t heard anything close to that number of errors from a Buc team. I doubt I will hear it again for quite some time. Homiak and the Bucs are clearly back on track though as back-to-back shutouts over Ohio teams seemed to prove.

The Bucs loss on opening day truly scrambled things up in the softball rankings. As it stands right now, the field is wide open with all of those teams listed having a shot to make a run at number one at any time. The softball games are fun to follow since there isn’t one area of the state that can make a claim to superiority. Delmar, all the way at the bottom of the state is just as likely to win big games as Brandywine (with their five freshmen) all the way at the top of the state is.
Caesar Rodney knocked off St. Marks, as an example of that. Christina Kirby out-dueled Ashley Constantini in a 2-1 win that pushed the Riders record to 4-0 at the time.

Lenona Stancil pitched a no-hitter for Laurel against St. Michael’s, Md in a 1-0 win for the Bulldogs who managed to squeeze their lone run out of two hits. Stancil whiffed nine in the game.
Stancil and Kati Ward combined to pitch a no-hitter against Woodbridge as the Dogs defeated the Blue Raiders 6-2. Amy Riggins and Mandy Lubiniecki each drove in two runs to provide the offensive support.

William Penn’s John Henry had a 5-5 day with the stick in a Colonial 10-1 victory over Delcastle. Two of the five hits were triples.

Sussex Central High's John Wells has been named the Gold head coach for the 47th annual Blue-Gold All-Star Football Game.
Hodgson's Larry Cylc will coach the Blue. This year's game will be played on June 29 in Delaware Stadium.
Joining Wells on the Gold staff are Central assistant Dave Marvel, Smyrna head coach Jeff Weiner and Glasgow head coach Mark Delpercio.
This will be Wells' third Blue-Gold football game - he twice served as an assistant under Delpercio on the Gold staff.

The Hillers of Tower Hill are playing their first-ever season of girl’s soccer yet with a whole load of club experience behind the individual players are fast becoming a strong team. Freshman Mauri Liberati scored a hat trick in the Hillers 5-1 win against Tatnall as the Hillers out shot the Hornets 18-8. The Hornets have gone deep into the state tournament for the past few years and the Hiller win should put a lot of teams on notice.

Although Christine and Amanda Cariello played field positions while members of the St. Marks softball team in high school, they faced each other as pitchers when Delaware State and Delaware faced each other on April 3. The older Amanda picked up the 5-3 victory striking out three and walking three while Christine struckout three and didn’t walk a batter.

Through April 7, Delaware’s Mandy Welch had 177 career hits, which left her just five shy of the Blue Hen career record held by Lauren Mark. With 22 regular season games left, there is little doubt that the new record will be set by a large margin. Welch is a senior from Lapata, MD.

The Blue Hens Laura Streets, a Newark graduate, is slapping the ball at a .383 clip and is leading the team with 13 rbi. Last year, Streets had a three-homer game, but has yet to hit one in the 23 games she has played this year.

Tatnall’s Jackie Ciconte and Sanford’s Leslie Baldino each scored six goals against each other’s teams but it was the Hornets who pulled out a 14-10 victory in the lacrosse shootout.
Ciconte added four more in a loss to an out of state team and Baldino tallied seven in a Warrior win against Westtown.
Hillary Schmidt scored five times for Tower Hill but the Hillers opened up their defense of their state championship with a 10-7 loss to the out-of-state Agnes Irwin of Pa.

Caesar Rodney’s Eric Seifert scored five goals for the Riders lacrosse team as they dropped Brandywine 13-10.
Ryan Farrell led the Bulldogs with 4 goals in the game.

Carlton Rose was a double winner at the Diamond State Relays for William Penn taking the shot put (57-.25) and the discus (165-2). His female counterpart Lateefah Vaughn pulled off the same double (38-9 and 114-10). The Colonials weight coach Brad Lane needs to pick up a coach-of-the-year award, somewhere down the road, for his continuing success with the William Penn throwers.
McKean’s Mandy Stille was Delaware’s other double winner as she captured the high jump (5-4) and the triple jump (36-8.25).

Behind the scenes here at Delaware Sports, all is quiet. And it will stay that way. All expansion plans are currently on hold because, quite frankly, there is too much to do with what we have to do now. No more 100 hour weeks for me anymore; I had way too many of them last year and am through with that!

So maybe I should heed some more of my advice and cut this short now also. Good idea. Later.