Ramblings 53

 January 30, 2002

by Marshal Manlove
Editor

Monday, February 4 at 7:30 p.m., be sure to be seated at The Charcoal Pit on Kirkwood Highway as athletes and coaches from Wilmington College and Goldey-Beacom College compete in our third installment of Delaware Sports – On Location.

This sports trivia contest is certain to be hotly contested. I stopped at Wilmington College yesterday to drop off some basic flyers to hang around campus promoting the event and I walked into the middle of a conference about the show. At the conference, a full color flyer that the school designed and printed was being approved for mass production so they could be distributed on cars encouraging students and faculty alike to support their school in the contest.

The Goldey-Beacom faculty appeared to be a bit more enthusiastic than the athletes were yesterday, but I received a phone call from Frank Aiello, the women’s basketball coach, who is coordinating their efforts. In a 24-hour period, the slots were filled so the games are on and The Pit should be packed. Get there early.

If you were listening to the Brandywine Sports Corner last night, you learned that Hodgson’s Joe Cylc will play for the Blue Hen football team next year. Cylc, 17, was a first-team all-state linebacker and honorable mention running back for the Silver Eagles. His efforts were key to propelling Hodgson into the Division II state championship tournament for the first time in its history.
Bob Sabol, the defensive coordinator for Delaware, who just resigned, recruited Cylc. Though slightly disappointed that the man who lured him to Delaware is gone, Cylc is not concerned.

Lets take a look at how the teams and competitors for the Basketball, Swimming, and Track championships are selected and seeded.

All of this information is directly from the Delaware Secondary School Athletic Association.

First, boy’s basketball-

The following 12 teams will receive automatic berths in the tournament: Blue Hen Conference Flight A champion and runner up. The Blue Hen Conference Flight B champion and runner up. The Henlopen Conference North champion and runner up. The Henlopen Conference South champion and runner up. The Independent Conference champion and runner up, and the top two non-conference teams.

Twelve at-large teams are will also receive berths in the tournament. The Basketball Committee will use the tournament point index system to select the at-large teams from the remaining teams in the state that choose to participate in the tournament. Ties will be broken with extra criteria.

The eight teams with the highest point indices, as determined by the tournament point system, will receive a bye in the first round. These teams will be seeded #1-#8 in the second round based on their point indices.

The 16 teams that do not qualify for a first-round bye will be seeded #9-#24 based on their point indices.

The point system is determined by awarding points as follows:

1. 2 points for each win during the regular season.
2. 1 bonus point for playing a team whose final regular season winning percentage is above .500 regardless of which team won.
3. 2 bonus points for playing a team whose final regular season winning percentage is above .700 regardless of which team won.

A team will receive 4 points for defeating an opponent whose final regular season winning percentage is above .700 and will receive 2 points for losing to them.

4. A team’s point index will be determined by dividing the total number of points earned by the number of regular season games played.

Those are the basics.

At this point in the season, the automatic bids would go to Newark, Delcastle, Concord, Hodgson, Sussex Tech, Dover, Lake Forest, Laurel, Sanford, St. Andrews, Caravel, and Red Lion Christian.

The 12 at-large teams – while doing some real quick primitive calculations – would be Salesianum, Archmere, St. Elizabeth, St. Marks, Howard, William Penn, McKean, Cape Henlopen, Indian River, St. Thomas More, Caesar Rodney, and Glasgow. I don’t have a clue about the point indices however, and it’s still early.

The schedule template is as such: First Round, February 28; Second Round March 2; Quaterfinals, March 5; Semifinals, March 7; and the Championship Game on Saturday, March 9.

The girl’s use 18 at-large berths to compliment the champions in all of the aforementioned conferences and the Catholic Conference as opposed to a non-conference group of teams. The indices are basically the same except that .001 is added to the winning percentage standards.

At this point in the season, the automatic bids would go to A.I. duPont, Concord, Polytech, Seaford, Sanford, and St. Marks. The at-large bids would, at this time, appear to go to William Penn, Christiana, Caesar Rodney, Cape Henlopen, Smyrna, Indian River, Red Lion Christian, Wilmington Christian, Tower Hill, Charter, Mt. Pleasant, St. Elizabeth, Padua, Glasgow, Brandywine, Dover, Caravel, and either McKean or Hodgson.

The schedule template is as such: First Round, February 27; Second Round, March 1; Quarterfinals, March 4; Semifinals, March 6, and the Championship on Friday, March 8.

For the swimming championships the criteria are easy- just swim fast and achieve certain marks. Here they are

Event Girls Boys

200 Freestyle 2:15.5 2:05.3
200 Medley 2:32.1 2:20.6
50 Freestyle 28.5 25.4
100 Butterfly 1:10.3 1:03.2
100 Freestyle 1:02.3 55.8
500 Freestyle 6:01.7 5:44.2
100 Backstroke 1:10.5 1:05.0
100 Breaststroke 1:20.7 1:10.2
Diving 125 points 125 points

The reason that the larger, deeper teams will succeed at the state tournament is due to the levels of places that are awarded points. For a first place finish by an individual, a school gets 20 points, 17 for 2^nd 16, for 3^rd, 15 for 4^th, 14 for 5^th, 13 for 6^th, 12 for 7^th, 11 for 8^th, 9 for 9^th, 7 for 10^th, 6 for 11^th, 5 for 12^th, 4 for 13^th, 3 for 14^th, and 2 for 15^th, and 1 for 16^th. Double all of those points for the relay teams.

Wednesday, February 20, the boy’s preliminary events will be held at the University of Delaware. On Thursday the 21^st, the girls will hold their preliminary events.

Saturday, February 23 from 9:30-2 p.m. the boy’s consolations and finals will be contested at the University of Delaware and from 4:30-9 p.m. the girls will hold theirs. We will be at both championships of course.

On March 2 the state indoor track and field championship will be held at the University of Delaware Field House. The field events will begin at noon and the running events will start at 2:30.

Athletes can compete in four events and a school may enter a maximum of three contestants per individual event and one team per relay race.

Performances in any DSSAA sanctioned indoor meet may be used to meet the qualifying standards.
All team entries in the 4x200-meter relay and the 4x400-meter relay are accepted. The top ten team entries in the 4x800-meter relay will compete for the championship in that event.

In the other events, there are a limited number of entrants that can compete, and naturally they are the best times, marks, and distances in each.
55-meter hurdles Top 16

55-meter dash Top 16
200 meters Top 20
400 meters Top 18
800 meters Top 18
1600 meters Top 18
3200 meters Top 12
Long jump Top 12
Triple jump Top 12
High jump Top 12 plus ties
Shot put Top 12
Pole Vault Top 12

Look out Middletown, here we may come. We are working on airing Delaware Sports and a few other specially produced sports programs on the Charter Cable system which reaches Middletown, Odessa, Townsend, parts of Smyrna, and parts of Cecil County Maryland as well. This is not set in stone yet because we have to work out some technical issues before we sign a deal. We do have time slots reserved though and they would be Monday-Wednesday from 9-9:30 p.m. and Thursday 9-10 p.m.

We are also making preparations to spread into Chester and Delaware County Pennsylvania. These are in the preliminary stages, but once some things are worked out at Comcast and we can land a sponsor willing to promote their product or service to a total of a couple million people, we will roll (hint, hint, hint, hint, hint, call 302-731-1676 to advertise on Delaware Sports.)

Syndication like this has been a goal of mine since 1995 when we started the TV show. Though we have strayed into other areas such as print, radio, Internet and sporting event management, the number one goal is to have our show in four states. Once we are there, we will draft new goals. So, we won’t just be the local guys any more. And our show will go over big in Delaware County, you can count on that. Our research suggests that just doing a show about Delaware County sports might make it worth not doing a Delaware sports show. But I don’t see that happening. We want to promote our athletes in other states to expose them to more and more people.

The third Delaware Sports All-Heart Team awards will be presented Saturday March 9 at 10 a.m. at a place yet to be determined. If you have nominated someone for this award and we have chosen your nominee, you will hear from me soon or you may already have a message on your machine or e-mail box. As usual there are great selections for this award and if you are another sportswriter reading this, don’t be afraid to report that we are giving out awards to young athletes here in Delaware. These are worthy young people who are worthy of this type of attention. Put aside your concerns about the incredibly monstrous competition that Delaware Sports has become! Don’t be afraid that we are growing with each week and month that we are in existence! Don’t be afraid to work with us since our goals are only to promote these athletes! Don’t worry about us coming and stealing your advertisers; we don’t have any salespeople! Do the right thing!

See why I changed the name of the column?

Marshal Manlove