WILMINGTON – After a sluggish first half, the Cape Henlopen girls basketball team got its offense in gear, and the Vikings clamped down defensively in a 49-28 win at Padua. It was Cape’s seventh straight win.
The Vikings had some early success taking the ball inside, sprinting to a 7-0 lead. Padua could not get anything going offensively for the first five and half minutes of the game until Kai Dwirantwi hit a mid-range jumper with 2:23 to go. That seemed to spur the Pandas, who took advantage of several Cape turnovers to tie the game, 7-7, before the first quarter ended.
Padua kept the offense going into the second, running their streak to 16 consecutive points as they built a nine-point lead. They scored inside on some nice passes, with Gianna Graham (St. Thomas the Apostle Parish, Glen Mills, Pa.) and Riley Bransfield (Sacred Heart Parish, Oxford, Pa.) on the receiving end, and Lily DiMarco (St. John the Beloved Parish) hit her second three-pointer of the evening during the run. But the offense stalled after that, and Cape Henlopen’s Amalia Fruchtman began to assert herself.
Fruchtman ended the Pandas’ run with a three-pointer with a minute and change to go before halftime, and Ally Diehl added a layup with four seconds on the clock to cut the Padua lead to four at the break.
Fruchtman frustrated the Pandas throughout the second half. She blocked several shots and grabbed numerous rebounds as Padua could not find the shooting touch. She scored the first four points of the half, making a short jumper and a transition layup, stretching Cape’s scoring streak to nine, before DiMarco put the Pandas back on top with a short field goal.
But Cape scored the next six and took the lead for good. Fruchtmand and Diehl both hit triples, and Diehl would hit another before the quarter ended. Cape took a 29-24 lead into the fourth.
The final eight minutes brought more Vikings defense. They clogged the middle, which is where Padua had success in the first half. Cape scored just 10 points in the quarter, but they held kept Padua off the board until the final minute and a half.
Fruchtman had 16 to lead all scorers, and Diehl added 10. Cape Henlopen (13-2) will host Milford on Feb. 10 at 6:15 p.m.
DiMarco paced the Pandas with eight points and seven rebounds; three players scored six apiece. Padua (8-8) travels to Caravel on Feb. 9 for a 7:15 p.m. tip.
Photos by Mike Lang.
